Mothers, how do you deal with this generation's seemingly premature access to the internet (esp. youtube)? What do you do to protect them from harmful content?

There are some great answers here already, but one thing that hasn’t been addressed is the fact that it’s not just our own kid’s exposure-it’s also the exposure of all the kids around them.

My oldest is only five but a really important aspect of it all is not just parental blocks on content and time limits for screentime-it’s open communication and positive reinforcement on their self-esteem. Kids need to know they can talk to you about anything, and that can only come if you establish that early and nurture it. I ask questions, but I also praise him when he tells me things that he’s learned or that are bothering him. A few days ago he asked me for a phone. I could have said, “oh heck no, you must be out of your mind!” Which was my knee jerk response. But instead we talked about why he thought he needed a phone. We ran through the pros and cons of having a phone until he was able to understand that he didn’t need a phone yet. That way he doesn’t automatically have a negative connotation with coming to me about tricky technology-related questions. It also avoided potential whining.

I also try to engage the kids in non-technology activities every day. It’s reall easy, especially as busy parents, to have the kids end up watching hours of tv. It takes some effort to engage them in something else, but it’s effort well-spent.

The final factor is me. I’m on my phone right now. I could be on my phone for hours today but I’m choosing not to. I’ve realized that I can become glued to my phone when I’m not automatically busy with something else. Easily, it becomes my default mode. I’ve learned I need to model not being glued to a screen for my kids. Monkey see, monkey do. It’s also positively impacted my own life. It’s too easy to get lost in the screens.

Edit: Thank-you for the gold! For the record, I am not a perfect mom by any means and I hope none of this came across as sanctimonious or judgy. We are all trying to do our best and goodness knows I learn by trial and error. Much love to you all!

There are some great answers here already, but one thing that hasn’t been addressed is the fact that it’s not just our own kid’s exposure-it’s also the exposure of all the kids around them.

My oldest is only five but a really important aspect of it all is not just parental blocks on content and time limits for screentime-it’s open communication and positive reinforcement on their self-esteem. Kids need to know they can talk to you about anything, and that can only come if you establish that early and nurture it. I ask questions, but I also praise him when he tells me things that he’s learned or that are bothering him. A few days ago he asked me for a phone. I could have said, “oh heck no, you must be out of your mind!” Which was my knee jerk response. But instead we talked about why he thought he needed a phone. We ran through the pros and cons of having a phone until he was able to understand that he didn’t need a phone yet. That way he doesn’t automatically have a negative connotation with coming to me about tricky technology-related questions. It also avoided potential whining.

I also try to engage the kids in non-technology activities every day. It’s reall easy, especially as busy parents, to have the kids end up watching hours of tv. It takes some effort to engage them in something else, but it’s effort well-spent.

The final factor is me. I’m on my phone right now. I could be on my phone for hours today but I’m choosing not to. I’ve realized that I can become glued to my phone when I’m not automatically busy with something else. Easily, it becomes my default mode. I’ve learned I need to model not being glued to a screen for my kids. Monkey see, monkey do. It’s also positively impacted my own life. It’s too easy to get lost in the screens.

Yes to all of this. I try not to be preachy about not being on your phone around your kids but it is a BIG deal to me. My husband and I used to spend a lot of time on our phone when our 2 year old was an infant because well... he was an infant and didn't know the difference. But then he started sitting up and looking for us and smiling and all of that and I started to notice that he was doing things to get our attention and we would not be aware of it.

I was sitting on the floor with him around the time he turned 1 and my husband was on the couch on his phone and baby started doing silly things to get his attention. I watched him until I saw him just give up and return to playing with me. So I threw a pillow at my husband and said "Hey, get off your phone and play with us." It wasn't because my husband doesn't like interacting or anything like that it was just something we were used to. So now if we see it happening we put each other in check and put down our phones.

Another thing I have noticed is how often I see people ignoring their kids out in public and in kid centered places like playgrounds yet taking pictures of them constantly and posting to social media with catchy captions. When my baby was 9 months my SIL had a 1.5 year old and I asked her to go to the park with us. I set a blanket out on the grass with toys and some little snacks and she showed up with my nephew who immediately started playing. She actually told him to stop and proceeded to pull out her camera stuff and make him pose for pictures all around the playground. Like... she actually made him PRETEND like he was playing but was putting him in all these different poses and never actually let him play.

It broke my heart so bad and I started noticing it more and more. I'm not trying to be holier than thou but that type of behavior is toxic to kids. People are oversharing about their children on social media constantly and I just don't see any possible way that it is a good thing for kids. I deleted all my social media except for reddit (which I don't use in the same way as instagram or facebook.) I feel like my family is so much healthier now because of it. When I was little none of this stuff was around and my parents actually played with us. Our whole life wasn't just a weird show being performed so that my parents could make themselves look like great parents. Our life was just... real life and it wasn't being broadcasted in some narcissistic reality T.V. manner.

I don't ever push any of this on my SIL but we have ended up in some conversations where she has asked me why I deleted my instagram and I have been completely honest with her about it. She told me that she misses seeing pictures of my LO and I said well, I can send you pictures on your phone or you can always come over and spend time with us. She will immediately become defensive and insist that she is posting all of this stuff because she thinks by sharing she is "helping" people and showing them real life depictions of motherhood. It's become such a weird thing to watch unfold. I've even stuff she has posted and thought "wait, that never happened" or "that's a weird lie to tell." She isn't the only one I notice doing that either.

Social media really expose the narcissism in our lives. The apps appear to be irresistible to people who feed on approval. I see that many of these folks are emotionally very vulnerable, but they're also invariable self-involved. My son's ex gf posted 3-4 selfies a day; all with perfect hair, makeup and flattering pose. It broke my heart.

Yeah. I mean, I have been there before too. I used to do the same thing but somewhere along the line I became self aware and I changed the behavior. I don't want my kids growing up around that. I want them to see healthy, self possessed adults living normal lives free from approval seeking behavior. It's weird how much you notice those things when you are away from it. I am in my late 20's and the girls I work with are early to mid 20's and I truly enjoy their company but when I go out with them the amount of times we have to stop because they want to take carefully curated pictures of themselves is ridiculous. I never complain or say something I just smile and tell them they look cute and then we move on but I am always dying inside when I see it.

I always get scared I come across as this person because I love to take pictures of activities, but that’s for my personal use to have to look back on memories because I love to print pictures for frames and albums lol.

Oh same!! I still keep photo albums and print pictures out all the time. My mom kept photo albums and I have so many awesome pictures of my family and now I can pass that same thing onto my kids. It’s the weird social media carefully curated perfect family aspect of it that freaks me out.

Parents on their phone is no different than parents in the past watching TV or reading the paper or a book or doing anything else. Frankly, I find it ridiculous how parents are shamed. Phones are a thing now and are a big part of our lives. When we take our kids to the park, it is to let them burn energy and have a break. I don't think there is anything wrong with a parent sitting nearby and reading some emails. Why do we always have to be staring into their eyes and paying them 100% of our attention to let them know that they are loved? I agree that we should play with them and give them attention when they ask for it, but to be on all the time? To never have time to ourselves, a moment to read the news, check our text messages? It's exhausting being a parent. Sometimes kids need to learn how to play by themselves and parents need time to relax with a book which is probably on their phone now.

I think instead of feeling as though it’s about the phone itself, it’s more of acknowledging that some parents or moms in particular feel like their kid is just a trophy for their social media accounts/followers and when it does come time to spend quality time it’s really all about them and not about the child. As you point out though, phones are an integral part of life and to expect a parent to refrain from using it would be ridiculous. But to let your kids constantly observe you acting in an approval-seeking manner, as a user mentioned above, would also be quite unhealthy to their confidence and development.

This is exactly what I was getting at. I have a phone. I use my phone in front of my kids. As I said though, I recognized it was getting in the way of us interacting with our children and I drew a line.

I’m really glad you said this. I absolutely agree with what is written above AND you are spot on to note how much pressure we put on ourselves as modern parents.

My son is one. He loves interaction, of course. But I find myself feeling guilty when he is happily playing on his own with his toys! Like, chill out defnotsarah and give him some space!
When did we as a society start believing that our kids need every ounce we have 100% of the time? Somehow parenthood has morphed into this perfectionistic long-distance sprint. It’s not doing anyone any favors.

I compare my parenting even though I know my kid feels love. I double check myself constantly. Not only does it turn into a hotbed of shame, it makes me cranky and snappy because no one can be on all the time.

I will reduce my screen time. But I have a lot I’m responsible for and if zoning out into a phone helps me relax, that’s okay. There can be balance.

Note: this rant is p much directed at myself, but hey. The internet can be a mirror.

I'm almost as judgy about parents reading books while their kids play. I've seen this before - I've *done* this before! - but I definitely feel better playing with my daughter than not, if it's her and I.

I'm in. I feel terrible too but it's something that I believe very earnestly. Kids should not have to spend their time posing for Mommy's instagram followers. It's hard NOT to judge. I'm not talking about the occasional "Hey honey smile for the camera" moment or even posting pics of your kids on insta because I of course love taking pictures of my kids. I'm specifically referring to people I have seen IRL force their children into being their own personal instagram model and not letting them have normal experiences because of it. So I'm right there with you.

Holy shit this is literally the most accurate description of what so many moms of this generation do it’s crazy. I’m 23 with a 2 year old daughter and I am rarely on my phone in front of her because like yourself, my parents actually played and interacted with me and were present in the moment-something you just cannot be when glued to social media.

That’s so sad. I’m really sorry your nephew has to deal with that. Kids are kids and they should be allowed to BE kids. Don’t worry, it’s really not off-topic at all, and I’m glad you shared.

My MIL is a bit like that, where she’s more concerned about pictures for social media than the event itself. She keeps pushing me to have a birthday party for my oldest that I can’t afford because all of her friends have parties like that. It’s crazy. I love doing things frugally, homemade, and I’m proud of that. I don’t need a bounce house or to have his party at some fancy place just so she can post pictures. And is it what my son wants? No.

I agree with everything you said! I'm a nanny, and I often try to do play dates at our house instead of their friends houses, because it's literally my job to play with the kids, and it disappoints me when they come home and I find out they just sat in front of the television the whole time.

That works for you, but I'd rather send my child to the local time machine and input a date before the internet existed. Then I can go check on my now adult kid in the present day and see how it all worked out.

Good question. The main thing he figured was that a phone is a big responsibility. It could break or get lost easily and he didn’t want to be responsible for something like that. I also told him he’d have to contribute to the cost of a phone and he said it would take him a long to save up for one. I also asked him what he would use a phone for, and he said that he would use it to call his grandma. I reminded him that he’s always welcome to call grandma on my phone. He also mentioned he could watch videos on his phone, and I reminded him that he can watch videos (with limits obviously) on the television.

So basically he figured out that having a phone is kind of a hassle and anything he wanted the phone for he already had. He mostly figured it out himself, but I guided him at times by asking certain questions. I find it helps when I have him answer his own questions-that way he feels like he owns the answer and he’s not just being “told so”.

Still, when I say phone, what I really mean is "pocket computer". It has games and other addictive stuff. Now I don't regret the time I spent gaming when I was a child but out games were different back then, the whole experience inspired me a great deal.

I think the problem will be more obvious when the child is exposed to other children that have access to that kind of stuff. When many of your friends' eyes are glued to a pocket computer that shows irresistible fun pixels I guess it would be harder for him to justify not having one.

I responded to a similar question with this answer but I’m going to paste it here too.

Good question. The main thing he figured was that a phone is a big responsibility. It could break or get lost easily and he didn’t want to be responsible for something like that. I also told him he’d have to contribute to the cost of a phone and he said it would take him a long to save up for one. I also asked him what he would use a phone for, and he said that he would use it to call his grandma. I reminded him that he’s always welcome to call grandma on my phone. He also mentioned he could watch videos on his phone, and I reminded him that he can watch videos (with limits obviously) on the television.

So basically he figured out that having a phone is kind of a hassle and anything he wanted the phone for he already had. He mostly figured it out himself, but I guided him at times by asking certain questions. I find it helps when I have him answer his own questions-that way he feels like he owns the answer and he’s not just being “told so”.

Mine are all getting older now, with my very youngest being nine, but I think the risks only increase as they age.
I could rewrite all that has been said above, but its easier touts say that what she has said about child-parent interactions is the thing that has created the safety that I needed them, and continue to need them, to have.
It is the basis for every single thing I have needed to teach them, guide them through, or trust them to figure out.

It was pretty much okay until about he got to about 9 or 10 and he really got into YouTube. When he was younger he basically just watched toy reviews and unboxing videos and shows. Now he's in the pre-teen phase and he's all about the gamer bro life. He watches tons of gamer bro videos. Pew Die Pie was huge for a while. Then meme videos. Then old reruns of America's Funniest Home Videos. Now it's Fortnite videos. We have a rule that he's not allowed to post comments or talk to people on You Tube. He's broken it a few times for stupid shit and gotten in trouble. He's allowed to play online games with strangers but he can't speak over the mic he can only type. If it's his cousins or friends from school he can speak over the mic.

We've warned him that there are some bad people out there who like to hurt little kids sometimes and not to talk to people if they say weird things or make him feel weird. It's the same as telling him not to let anyone touch him in his swimsuit area. I know some people will roll their eyes at this but I was molested as a kid and I'll be damned if I let that happen to him.

He knows that he has care Blanche to come get us if he thinks something is wrong and he won't get in trouble even if he was breaking a rule. We also audit his stuff randomly and if he's broken a rule he gets grounded from his electronics.

We haven't had any issues with inappropriate content. He just turned 11 so I expect that will start sooner rather than later.

We don't restrict his violence/horror exposure. He doesn't like gory or super scary movies/games so it was never an issue.

I think you're doing great job. I doubt people, especially parents, would roll their eyes at you although I too sometimes wonder if I'm too paranoid. I'm also truly sorry for what you've been through. It's completely understandable that you would want to protect your kids even more.

My nephew and niece are just a couple of years older than your son, and it really opened my eyes to how easy it is for children to access mature content online. My sister has almost exactly the same rules as yours, but like your son, they're still curious and we as their guardians can't always be on the watch. I'm trying to find a balance where I'm not too over-controlling but still protective of them and I think you're doing exactly that.

Thank you so much for your input.

I think you're doing great job. I doubt people, especially parents, would roll their eyes at you although I, too, sometimes wonder if I'm too paranoid. I'm also truly sorry for what you've been through. It's completely understandable that you would want to protect your kids even more.

My nephew and niece are just a couple of years older than your son, and it really opened my eyes to how easy it is for children to access mature content online. My sister has the almost exactly the same rules as yours, but like your son, they're still curious and we as their guardians can't always be on the watch. I'm trying to find a balance where I'm not too over-controlling but still protective of them and I think you're doing exactly that.

I'm similar to you, but 11 year old girl. She knows I can and will check her phone randomly. People roll their eyes and tut at an 11 year old with a phone but, she has earned it. She started off at 9 with a crappy Android smart phone and worked her way to an iPhone 7 (first non second hand device and she asked for an iPhone).

I worked and her dad did since she was born. It was our way of having private conversations with each other, as in, she could text me etc, download games. This is what I told her and in reality it's me teaching her responsibilities with the device. Proper behaviour etc.

I monitor EVERYTHING. And she knows it. I see all. I have some restrictions, ie time limits and certain apps off. But if she wants an exception she only needs to ask. I check messages, apps, emails, browser. And only once have I found something 'untoward', she googled 'hot boy' and found some teen idol in the sun. Lol. Now I spoke to her about that and no more issues.

I have a background in tech. Lemme tell you what causes most problems in my experience. Parents who just hand their kids tech with no restrictions, at any age. How do you expect kids to behave if you give them a list of rules and a device and say 'off you go!'.

I am regularly fixing those things for concerned parents. My kid has learned 2 things with it. Respect for the device and respect for the rules.

In regards to your last point, we live in a city and know no one. No family, no friends outside work, NADA. So we take our kid to the movies. And yeah we see some gorey stuff (ie John Wick is her favourite movie) but she knows real life Vs fantasy. We are pretty lenient but if we are talking movies that are psychological or extremely sex focused that's a no from me.

My kid is well rounded, well mannered and intelligent. I think we did ok. 😁

I'm gonna go a little against the other comments but uh...you aren't giving your daughter privacy. You're just teaching her she has no privacy and her parents don't trust her. You say she earned her phone, but you undermine that with snooping on her and it comes across very clearly in your post this is a threat.

You chastised her for googling "hot boy"? All you've done with that is teach her to be sneakier about where she looks that info up. You're teaching her to be sneakier and that she can't actually trust you, and you're hamstringing her during formative years. Let the kid have some privacy.

Teach her better foundations, don't teach her she can't look something up or mom will come talk to her about it later.

I do not agree with you at all. You make it sound like I'm some invasive parent looking over her shoulder all the time, in every conversation, and checking every Google search. That is not true. And she is aware of what I'm doing.

What you are describing are the kids, in my experience, who run riot. They wrack up massive bills, download shit and look at stiff that are age inappropriate.

So you're more than welcome to your opinion but nah, I'm good thanks.

Source: I work in tech and I'm a parent. I know what I'm talking about.

It’s very clear that you care about your daughter. I would suggest giving her more privacy before age 18. My dad heavily monitored me at that age and I still harbor anger and resentment about it many years later. While our relationship has improved now that I live many hours away, it has been difficult for me to forgive him for many of the invasive ways he controlled my life. The clear message from him was that I was untrustworthy and not capable of making my own decisions, and I have found that it affected my development, my sense of confidence and my autonomy. I still struggle with saying no to others or being resourceful before I did not have the freedom or power to act or learn independently. I also have a paranoia (it’s stupid I know) that he is still tracking my behavior and will punish me for it. Just a thought, but just want to say it’s really amazing that you care so much, sounds like you are a great dad.

I second what scandikandi said. Kids are endlessly resourceful and will learn to hide things from you, and especially as she hits her early teens it's reasonable for her to expect a degree of privacy. Not just for stuff pertaining to 'hot boys' but at that age I had many private conversations with friends online dealing with things not appropriate to share with my mother. Their issues with abusive parents, financial issues, period stuff, sexual assault, relationship stuff. Even at 11 I had a friend who's father was abusive to her mother.

By the time I was 15 my politics were different to my parents, my religion was, I read controversial books ect.. As you form your own identity it's beneficial to do so without the pressure of someone watching you from whom you need their approval.

If your child is as wonderful as you say she is, it's easier to show her you trust her in stages now, along with right behavior online and emphasizing how she can trust you with any concerns, versus sudden autonomy as soon as she turns 18. There were a lot of girls like that I met my first year of school and they went crazy with the sudden freedom.

Obviously I don't know the whole story and you seem to love your daughter a lot, but it's a good idea to not forget too much what it was like to be 13, 15, ect...

I was always kind of a goody two shoes growing up, and I really hated when adults would make me follow a bunch of stupid rules, restrictions, and monitoring because they assumed that all teenagers were trying to get into sex and drugs. My suggestion (as admittedly a non-parent) is not to be very strict unless the kid gives you a good reason to be strict.

Agreed. As a kid in the mid 90s, I taught myself html and was really into web design. I had an online website that I'd journal in - no personal info, just feelings,and creative writing and ideas. It was that weird publicly anonymous yet private space . He found the site and started reading my journal out loud in front of my mom and I - mocking me. It was incredibly hurtful and still stings to this day.

My dad was a jerk that day. He was likely the source of a lot of teenage angst for me. I learned a shitty lesson that nothing on the internet is private early on. Despite that, it definitely could have been handled in a better way.

I would stop monitoring sooner than later. It is completely natural for her to start exploring her sexuality online. I started reading porn fanfictions when I was 13ish and eventually found porn videos, etc. My parents never monitored me which I sincerely appreciated. They gave me a few guidelines. 1. Never ever give my name or address to anyone. 2. Never ever reveal my age or gender to anyone online. 3. If I ever feel uncomfortable, tell them. They gave me the online predator talk and I made sure to follow that. You're going to have to let her go at some point. Also, I sincerely hope you didn't completely discourage her from looking at cute boys online. Again, that's so natural for development.

Edit: And just for context, I didn't turn into some kind of sexual deviant either. I'm over thirty and have only ever dated two men that I had long-term relationships with. I like to think that my online perusals were helpful in making me aware that there are good and bad relationships, and I was always looking for good ones.

I agree with the thing about the “hot boys”. I probably would not have even brought that up if it was my kid, that would be so embarrassing for the kid to be confronted about and like you said, it’s normal to get curious

while you seem like you have good intentions, i would seriously scale back your monitoring by the time she enters high school. there are absolutely still things that are difficult and dangerous, but at a certain age it becomes important to build that trust that she can come to you if things go wrong while also giving her the privacy to conduct herself online how she chooses (within reason). she may need that privacy in ways you’re not aware of.

personally, my parents had an overarching policy of being able to check my devices in high school, even though they never did, and it terrified me. i was gay and closeted and had online friends and websites i would go to and that was my only outlet. i guarded my phone with my life and became very paranoid and resentful, and the bad altercations i did get into online i didn’t feel able to tell my parents about. that’s not to suggest that you are homophobic or would react similarly, but that you never know why your kid might need that privacy. it will work out better for your relationship in the long run.

Did everyone miss the /s after the 18??? Also, how old is highschool. We don't have that here. I'll stay this strict til 13 then I'll begin dialing it back. She'll never learn if I'm constantly looking over her shoulder and I know that.

She can tell me anything. I have no problem with gay, straight it anything else. At the end of the day she tells me she murdered someone then I show up with a shovel and a carpet, lol.

The problem with you not caring is that she may not know that. Think about it from her perspective: the stricter you are, the more she assumes you are preventing her from having fun, doing what she wants etc. The parents vs kids thing is always something to keep in mind. I'm not trying to parent your kids or anything, but it's important to understand how important unguarded and unmonitored internet is. Because it's anonymous, people feel safe asking uncomfortable questions, discussing things they may not be comfortable with. The age where this is more important than protecting your kids from bad influence is hard to gauge, but you want to make sure they don't resent you for unfairly restricting their access to the internet.

The hard thing is that everyone is very divided on how much supervision is too much. I would not let a 13-14 year old be unsupervised online. One of my biological siblings made her kids fb pages and when she checked them, they had both blocked the same adult man for apparently saying creepy things to them.

It's sort of crazy how so many people are more trusting of online than they are of offline.

That's okay, I'm their parent, it's my job to protect them and raise them to be decent humans. I'm not saying you read each and every message but you should randomly check in to make sure there isnt anything you need to address like peer pressure, relationships, and their emotional/physical well being. Teens are not adults,they still need you to parent them.

I think the difference is as your child gets older/enters the teenage years, checking in on things like peer pressure, relationships, etc. shouldn’t through monitoring your child’s devices, but rather through fostering and open and communicative relationship where they feel comfortable enough to talk to you about those things. You sound like a great parent with a good handle on your child’s needs, but if my parents had monitored my stuff past the age of 13 or 14 I would have never forgiven them for it and probably never trusted them enough to talk to them about my issues. Fostering a healthy sense of independence and self-agency is probably the most important thing you can do for your child when they’re in the high school years.

It was more like 'do you think it's right to do that?' (she had a sleep over with 2 friends and neither had access to internet/phones at all) and she said no, I asked why but she didn't know. So I explained to her that she is a child, there's plenty of time to be thinking of guys/girls like that when she's a little bit older and for now she needs to just enjoy being a kid. She seems to have understood and it's been 6+ months and I've seen nothing.

It was a harmless search. But it's the harmless ones I need to catch, before they become harmful.

Why can't she have a fuzzy hormone crush brain? Obviously she's at the developmental stage where she can, or she wouldn't have googled that. You are making decisions for her about how she feels and that can go bad fast.

Jesus Christ. I am making decisions that it's inappropriate to be pushed into because there are friends around. YOU are making decisions on my parenting from the bare bones of a few comments on the internet.

I think you and alot of other commenters here, are making judgements based on US culture. We are pretty far from that. People are talking about deciding what sexual orientation/religion/political party she is at 13, well that's just not how things are here.

So get a grip on yourself. She's 11. I bet you are doing a fabulous job parenting your kids being so hands off. Lemme know how that goes for you when they turn 18.

Tbh, I grew up at the start of the internet when it was all pretty new to parents; so, all I’m saying here is I had full freedom to roam the web unsupervised due to my parents lack of understanding about the internet. In that time, I had a MySpace, AIM, Facebook, Twitter, and instagram. On these platforms, I met strangers and I talked to my friends.

Based off how fabulously I was parented, even without supervision I made the right choices. If something felt off, I felt safe enough to tell my parents and get their advice on how to handle it.

Sometimes I googled hot boys, sometimes I googled hot girls, and sometimes I googled puppies in baskets. None of it was wrong and I’m really appreciative I was never made to feel as if the innocent development of my sexuality was inappropriate (especially in a setting with trusted peers of mine).

To answer the lemme know how that goes for you part when your kid turns 18, I’ll respond for my parents.
My brother at 18 graduated top of his class and was accepted to the best engineering university in the United States and is now a computer engineer working on the codes behind multi-million dollar medical microscopes.
By 18 for me, I graduated in the top 10% and left to attend the most highly ranked University of California. Besides academics, I stayed true to who I was and never let anyone pressure me into sex I didn’t want to have or affection I didn’t want to give and I constantly stood up for myself and my friends.

My parents never interfered with my privacy. I’m not advocating for such a lax approach, all I’m saying is you don’t need to be so intrusive with kids for them to know how to be a good person. They were present with me and nonjudgmental and never forced me to share more than I’m willing to. I voluntarily let them into my life and they are my best friends that I know will always have my back and lead me on the right path. I don’t think I could have been raised better and I’m really happy with how I turned out at 18.

I don't trust other people, people lie and cheat and manipulate children. And if I have to be over protective for that then so be it. Children are easily lead and swayed by adults who want things. Maybe my job has made me cynical but it's better than blindly trusting everyone.

t was more of a 'do you think it was right to do that because 2 friends slept over and don't have access to the internet?

Ohhhh, okay. Sorry, I just reread your original comment and can see what you mean, now. I think I missed the mention of the other two the first time around and thought it was just the search itself that you were referring to. That sounds like a good way to approach it!

It is so wrong to use spyware imo. I can understand innocent children, and needing parental restrictions, but it feels like a violation of their privacy. No parental software is infallible, and kids who can't do what they want will find out how to get around them. This caused loads of tension between my parents and I a while back. It became a fight between us, and a constant source of conflict. Teaching kids that there will always be an eye in the sky and a safety net around them is a poor way to help them learn autonomy.

PewDiePie also referred to several past incidents that sparked a similar outcry: a video in which he performed a Nazi “heil” salute, and one in which he hired a pair of performers from a freelancer website to hold up a sign reading “Death to all Jews.”

We have had the racism talk. He is learning the big and little signs of racism as much as two white parents can teach him. At the end of the day you can't police 100% of everything that your kid gets exposed to. If you wrap everything up 100% a pretty little bow of nicey nice Ness then they're going to be super sheltered and they'll have at a big disadvantage when they get into the real world. It's better to say "hey I know you like Pew Die Pie because you think he's funny but sometimes he says things like "blah" and "blah" and do you understand why that's mean and not okay?" It's usually better to start a conversation than just blindly hand out a lot of rules.

Do you have kids? Between this and your support of monitoring kids activities until they're 18 I really hope you don't, they'd never have any freedom or space to become individuals. PS you can't delete YouTube from Android phones, and kids can just access it through the phone's web browser anyway...

Do you have kids? Between this and your support of monitoring kids activities until their 18 I really hope you don't, they'd never have any freedom or space to become individuals. PS you can't delete YouTube from Android phones, and kids can just access it through the phone's web browser anyway...

That's pretty sad that you believe sth that happened once on a stream and never happened again, love this kind of changing one of the best YouTubers on the planet into a racist sexist and a devil that should be banned from living.

I mean God forbid if parents don't want their children to look up to someone who paid people to hold up a "death to all Jews" sign even if it was supposed to be an "ironic, edgy" joke. This is how incels and racists are made--kids are extremely impressionable.

The problem is, it keeps happening. A lot. He's sexist, racist, and spoiler: Someone who isn't doesn't just randomly have a slur pop into their mouth during a "heated gaming moment". I've had plenty of "heated gaming moments" and never once spat out a racial epithet.

Don't defend this guy; he has repeated racist behaviors many, many times. Every single time, people laud that he does charities and he says he's sorry, but it just. keeps. happening.

Dude is racist. He is not "one of the best Youtubers". Stop putting this person on a pedestal. Do more research.

I mean I guess I could get the racist part from with the whole n word thing , but I don’t know about sexism. You can’t see the full picture if you just look at the cons , and brush all the pros aside. Atleast the guy has acknowledged his wrongdoings and can take criticism unlike some people in the spotlight , and he always apologizes and stuff. He has unified people of all cultures all over the world.He has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for charity. He doesn’t try to exploit his audience with brand deals and crap like many other people do. All I’m saying there could be a much worse person at the top of YouTube.

You're brushing aside the "whole n-word thing" as if it is a small, tiny thing. I'm black, and to me, using the n-word casually is not a small thing. I wouldn't want to watch it and I wouldn't want any little black children of mine watching someone who thinks it's okay to casually use a slur that has been used to denigrate my people for hundreds of years. It does not unify people to make anti-Semitic jokes or to use racial slurs. He may have apologized (half-assedly, when his brand is threatened) but he keeps doing the same things.

He hasn’t done something like that in almost 2 years, and yeah he might be a little racist , and if he is it’s probably from the shit show climate that’s been boiling over in Europe for decades. He’s still not sexist , and he’s definitely not some alt right wacko. He also kinda embodies the American Dream in a way. Some poor Swedish guy who starts doing what he loves and then become a big and famous.

Did you watch even one other video from his chanel? Sexist controversy is just pure lies, and he just uses specific type of humour, everyone once said a shit joke and if you say that you are pure angel then you are lying. Also why do you think that every chanel is supposed to be for 5year olds, his content is 13+ but that doesn't mean he is a racist.

No, not everyone has let the n-word slip out of their mouth while playing video games, and not everyone has paid someone to hold a sign with an anti-Semitic remark on it. Seriously, truly think about what kind of behavior you are defending here. If saying racist things doesn't make one a racist, what does make someone a racist?

Not every YouTube channel is for kids, but this thread is specifically talking about what parents let their kids watch online, and the context for this thread is an 11-year-old.

But more than you think. PDP had a habit of explosively swearing in videogames, and one slipped out. He's also playing to the camera, making his emotions bigger. He paid someone to write death to all Jews assuming the person wouldn't do it. You probably read a few news articles about it and didn't watch the videos yourself. Those news sources have dug through every video on his channel and picked out the absolute worst they can find. Someone else could do the exact same thing with good things he says.

I actually did watch the videos. I don't follow him, but I make a point of viewing primary sources so I can judge for myself.

Even if he assumed the person he paid wouldn't do it, they did and he featured it on his channel. And there are hundreds of streamers, some as foul-mouthed as sailors, who don't let the n-word "slip out" while streaming. So again I say - think about what kind of behavior you're defending here.

Uhhh PewDiePie didn't do a messed up thing "once on a stream." PewDiePie has used racist slurs and anti-Semitic jokes multiple times on his streams. I'm a gamer who loves gaming videos and usually gives streamers wide latitude, but PewDiePie didn't make an innocent mistake; he does this repeatedly to be edgy. And nobody said he should be banned from living; not wanting your child to watch someone who makes racist jokes is perfectly normal and not quite in the realm of "banning someone from living.:

Really?? That would explain why it was like I couldn’t get real, solid answers about what it even was. And would explain the confusion over the idea that it people with nefarious intent could “hack” normal videos files that had already been uploaded.

Yeah it was just fake stories about a "Momo challenge" that eventually attempted to get people to hurt or kill themselves. Then the fake stories got picked up by news places who figured they could sell it to panic parents.

It may have started as a hoax, yes, but in return it gave people the idea to do it. And they have.

Not on the large scale that people think/has been reported, but my SIL's little cousin ended up being one of the kids who came across a randon momo pop up. It didn't tell her to harm herself, though, the face just popped up in the video.

Are you sure it wasn’t just one of the many videos where scary crap pops up on the screen? Momo is specific (and fake). The other videos are just a fact of life and have been since flash video existed....

You mention inappropriate content. How do you plan on dealing with the technology aspect when it comes to curiosity about sex and sexual urges? Obviously it's important to have a open, honest and thorough discussion with your child about sex, but I think most children/teens start looking for outside information at a certain point. It's a very slippery slope, because you don't want to repress your child's curiosity or sexuality, but you also want to protect them.

Honestly I don't care that he will probably start looking at porn soon. I think it's normal. His mom (my wife) is a bit more traumatized by the idea. My plan is to take him aside and say "it's normal to be curious and enjoy this. Just realize that porn is a fantasy and not a healthy relationship and it's not always an accurate depiction of sex." Sometimes we catch him sticking his hand in his pants. Not to masturbate but just to touch. It seems mostly like a distracted tactile thing. We tell him that it's okay but he has to do that in his room with the door shut.

same with my 10 y/o brother but lately ive noticed hes been watching music videos for ariana grande and im like uhhh do i block this or not? he doesnt have an actual account so im not sure if i could but if i bring it up itll just, idk. not sure how to deal with him getting interested in girls

I don't think him watching music videos with attractive females is something you need to deal with. He's getting to that age and it is completely normal. Having his sister block the videos or talk to him about it is just going to be very embarassing and might make him feel ashamed about a normal thing.

Now if he is talking to random strangers or on apps that facilitate innapropriate behavior, def speak up.

10 is a pretty normal age to be interested in girls. It's just part of growing up, and it shouldn't be something to be ashamed of. Rather it's better to start having conversations about respect, mutual consent, and so forth as he starts to get into his teen years.

yeah i get that its normal. its just i dont know how to deal with if i should be letting a 10 y/o watch sexually implied videos or hear songs of such.. like is that a normal thing to let kids consume? cause everyone here is saying its normal.. people took my comment as if im trying to block any attractive person to him smh

i discovered the internet super early, and have been using youtube since 2006. i think i was 8?

long story short, it was both a good and bad thing. my parents never really restricted my youtube viewing (although they did block porn sites, but i found my way around that pretty quick). i saw a lot of fucked up shit growing up, but i feel like i learned a lot. my parents sheltered me a lot, but i was able to learn about the things they wanted to keep from me, and as a result became a (relatively) level headed adult that was informed enough to make her own decisions. i realized pretty quickly that my mom was abusive, and that therapy is a great option.

i was scarred quite a lot though. thankfully i was never brave enough to watch 2 girls 1 cup or any of those kinds of videos.

My so and I are planning to have our first child in 3 years and I spend a lot of time discussing this matter with my parents and my partner already. I am really happy to read this answers :)
It soothes me!

My girlfriend and I were talking about this last night, we both grew up in an online world and we were both “friends” with predators as children and we don’t want our kid to grow up and face those things alone like we did. It’s strange to think that the next generation may be so much more prepared then ours was.

Yep, this. I'm not trying shield my kids from what's out there, I'm trying to teach them how to deal with it safely and responsibly. (I do try to keep it age appropriate though, mine are 9 and 6.)

My 9 year old came to me recently and said, "I was watching a video on YouTube and the girl on it said thefword so I turned it off." And we had a conversation about what she was watching, why she thought the narrator said fuck, the purpose of swearing, was the video showing anything inappropriate, etc.

Yes, this. Kids will find a way. Back in the day, it was daring each other to buy a porn magazine or rent a horror movie, or getting kidnapped by that weird guy behind the bush. Now it’s just a bit easier to find these things... but not that much. Your five year old won’t buy coke on the dark web, or commit suicide because of the “mono challenge”.

The only thing I would worry about are these “kids” videos on YouTube that are actually really gory/has porn elements. Not because I’m scared they’d learn bad words or whatever, but I would worry they’d be scared when they just wanted to watch some Mickey Mouse. Then I’d talk to them about it.

Yes, I think I did the right thing. Youtube is addictive. I deleted it several months ago and she still asks if she can watch videos. After I saw videos of kids unwrapping toys and then play with them, I was like... hell no! This aint normal.

For me it’s super weird because these videos are almost like ads/sponsored content telling kids to consume consume consume. It’s like sitting your kid in front of a constant stream of commercials, but worse because they don’t even seem like commercials. An adult or even an older child has the critical thinking skills to go oh these people are doing this to make money but it’s a way more insidious type of advertising to little ones. They might see a channel full of videos of some kid opening toys and think that’s a normal part of life, or not understand why they can’t get new toys to open every day. I’m not even a parent but my little sister got into makeup unboxing videos as a young kid (9?) and it made her obsessed with makeup, she constantly wanted my parents to buy it for her so she could put it on and look pretty and take pictures.

I don't have kids, but I was babysitting three girls (5, 2, and baby). They watched YouTube kids for hours, and it was just the most idiotic, mind-numbing stuff. Like, they'd watch videos of this (grown, adult) mom taking her little girl to Walmart to look for "squishies" (apparently this is a popular thing these days...just these squishy toys and keychains and stuff) that they don't already have yet. And buying them.

Just...mindless consumption. It was the weirdest thing. And the kid in the video wasn't even all that interested in it. It was mostly the mom like "Oh looooook at this one! It's so cute!"

So weird. Like the longest, extended commercial ever.

And then there were others of teenagers/women in their 20s playing with these little kids dolls, and even the "storyline" (if you can call it that) of the dolls was them going to the store and buying item after item of stuff.

Ugh. My younger brother (the only sibling to reproduce so far) actually started doing these with my oldest nephew. He told me and my dad about it and said he's doing it because some day started doing then and made so much money that he quit his day job. Apparently they make time of money on there because kids will watch the ads without skipping them. Totally felt gross and toxic, exploration and capitalistic, with the added benefit of spilling my nephew about getting new toys, particularly once based on popular new kids movies or whatever. Grrr.

Unboxing vids really aren’t that terrible. I get the makeup thing, that’s because it was makeup. But what if it was unboxing videos of Pokémon booster boxes and she was getting hyped to get her own packs to see what Holographics she got, and was excited to build her own decks? Like I believe they do serve a good purpose, regardless of age. Just depends on what it is. How often do we do that for technology? Depending on who’s doing the video, it’s usually for the purpose of reviews. I think that are far worse videos that can be watched. Product videos are today’s window shopping. We’re all consumers down to the core. I think the value comes to down to teaching your kid to not be obsessed. As a kid growing up on Electronic Gaming Monthly in the early 90’s, it gave me an appreciation for games. And I wanted lot of them. But I wasn’t hounding my mom for every game that came out and telling her I’d die without it.

I think it’s still problematic for young children even if it’s Pokémon or whatever. I’m also speaking in the context of this particular comment thread, which started with the mother of a 4 year old.

I think it’s one thing if they’re a bit older, it’s a hobby they already have, and they’re interested in watching review videos - that’s learning how to be an informed consumer, which can be an important skill. I want to teach my kids not to be consumers down to the core (or at least to limit their consumption as much as possible) and I don’t feel that constant access to this type of window-shopping is a good idea. But I think it also comes down to the particular kid and their maturity level, understanding of ads, and other circumstances. I’m not trying to imply that it’s the worst thing ever but I definitely get why people find it weird and want to limit exposure.

Large sports on TV is very much about community/following favorite players (aka celebrities). People band together and form a community around their favorite team. How many people do you think would watch middle school basketball games unless they were actively involved in that team with a family member?

I think the person you're responding to was being sarcastic, pointing out that watching youtube videos of other people playing video games, like fortnite, is really no different than watching any sporting event on TV.

Typically if you're watching a sport on tv you are watching people who are (mostly) elite players doing something most viewers can't come close to participating in. 99% of people and probably a number of different primates can play with a Barbie.

It's almost like you didn't even read my comment or its context. Regardless what "typically" happens for sports viewing, The fact is they do play High School sports games on TV literally all the time. They also show collegiate games all the time. Those aren't Professional Athletes, yet people watch them. So regarding kids watching "gaming videos" on Youtube or Twitch, it really is no different. Like if you enjoy the sport of basketball, maybe you'll enjoy youtube videos connected to basketball in anyway, even if it sounds lame, you can find enjoyment out of it because you like the subject.

Secondly if you're talking about the whole "unwrapping videos" phenomenon, I really don't see the problem with it. I'd never watch those particular kids toy videos, but thats because I don't like those things. You aren't watching an unboxing video solely because you like seeing people open gifts. You're watching it primarily for the the personality of the reviewer, the review of what is being opened, and/or the surprise of what they are opening. Have you ever seen an UnboxTherapy or MKBHD video? Unboxing is just a small aspect of what they do/why people watch their videos. And I don't think it's at all weird adults watch that. And I think the argument of kids shouldn't watch toy videos because it breeds a culture of consumerism or whatever, is complete bullshit. People like having/doing things that bring them enjoyment. There is nothing wrong with that. If your kid was watching videos of people getting new books and reading them/reviewing them and talking about them, would you be angry they were watching that? Or is it just because you (and this isn't you in particular, just the general 'you') deemed barbies/wrestlers stupid, that you think watching videos on those toys shouldn't be allowed?

I mean...people also create communities around certain YouTube influencers, too. There are entire communities of people who subscribe to influencers who unwrap new items and use them. I think the point is social media doesn't have this on lock; the medium itself is new but the idea of the content isn't really that new.

I’m like imagining family videos at Christmas where parents would take videos of the kids opening their presents and then playing with them. I guess I just don’t see what’s so weird about it? I have no desire or reason to watch such videos I just don’t get what you’re saying is so wrong about it.

You’re also not a child (presumably), they get a little hit of dopamine when they see something unwrapped. Kids fucking love unwrapping presents. The buildup of the paper coming off to reveal a kids favorite toy is a huge draw for them.

This dopamine thing, on the Internet, is kind of getting out of control. I'm a psychologist who's studied substance dependence and addiction. Dopamine doesn't really work the way people think it does, or the way pseudoscientific influencers have spread on the Internet. Rewarding, pleasurable experiences involve a lot of neurotransmitters and other physiological responses; we can't isolate the effect of dopamine in this way; and it's not alone responsible for getting kids 'addicted' to social media videos. Dopamine is also conducted to good things, like getting an A on a paper or working out (and it does not cause addiction to these things, either). The focus on dopamine also excludes the social aspects of this: Unboxing/unwrapping videos are rewarding because we're socialized to value new, shiny things. You can suppress dopamine and mammalian creatures will still get hype about things they like, or that they think others will like.

Everybody loves unwrapping presents. Kids aren't the only ones who get a 'hit of dopamine' when they see something unwrapped; everybody does (well, everyone has a complex physiological reaction when they seem something they find rewarding). The difference isn't the reaction; it's that adults also have sophisticated developmental processes for thinking critically about what's causing the reaction and kids don't.

(This isn't really directed at you specifically, it's just that I've seen dopamine used a lot to explain all kinds of phenomena of the modern era, and it makes me and my other psychologist/neuroscientist friends sigh big sighs.)

It appears very much to be sponsored video content 100% designed to get the kid obsessed with the toy. It’s long form advertising targeted exclusively to children. The people who make these videos are not just normal kids who love toys. They are paid influencers with a script and an incentive to market this toy (and that toy and that toy and that toy) to children.

I kind of get what you're saying but it's also no different than people watching football or watching others play video games on YouTube. People like watching doing other shit they cant do. Kind of like how I like watching first impression make up videos. Am I ever going to buy all that makeup and use it? Probably not. It's just interesting to me and something to do.

Yeah, except that you’re not a kid. Kids don’t have the same capacity to understand that this is not stuff that they can’t do. The idea of getting new toys/makeup every week becomes “normal” to them. And they’re too young to understand that these videos are like advertisements.

Well the argument wasnt that its gonna make kids want gifts. The argument was that it was weird. While I can see the former happening, i dont see how the videos themselves are weird. Like you said it's like an ad, theres literally ads everywhere. There were ads when I was growing up. Not saying it's right bc like fuck capitalism and consumerism and shit but yeah

I guess I don’t consider those separate issues. I’m thinking it’s obviously weird because it’s going to make kids want gifts. It’s weird that capitalism and consumerism are being promoted in such bright, colorful packages to 5 year olds. And what’s particularly weird about it is how these videos are designed to be tricky - like other people have said, their format is more addictive than commercials, and it feels more normal/relatable to watch.

Editing to add: Also it’s weird because unlike the commercials/billboard type ads that we see all the time, these are usually longer so kids can absorb more from them. This is just an anecdotal example, but take my little sister’s obsession with makeup unboxing. She started freaking out that my parents wouldn’t buy her makeup because obviously when you’re a lady you need makeup to be pretty, come on mom! People just shouldn’t go outside if their brows aren’t looking perfect!

Ah okay I see what you're saying. But also, I havent heard of any studies saying that a longer video is worse than an ad when it comes to the whole dopamine hit you're talking about (there might be but I havent really looked into it). Like I mean, even when you're eating and get a dopamine hit, you only really get that the first bite and maybe the 2 or 3 after.

I think there’s a part of it that comes from the intention of the channel. For me I feel really uncomfortable knowing that some of the biggest growing channels only have these kid unwrapping videos—and only because they know that kids will watch them over and over again. The dopamine hit is what they’re banking on.

Plus, besides them not having any concern for children at all past their monetary usefulness, to me it grates me that the videos have no usefulness outside of the dopamine rush. Okay, so kids know how to... open boxes? With makeup tutorials or game plays, they are watching people do things and have conversations about life. I don’t know what much can be said by a five year old by opening fifty kinder eggs in a row.

These unwrapping videos are only popular because the creators are preying on the dopamine addiction. Is it intrinsically evil? No... but I’d not want my child access to watch these channels endlessly

I think gaming and make up videos are largely about showing off skill, not product. Unboxing videos are purely about it selling a product, and it wires kids’ brains to associate more positive feelings with consumerism. We see the same thing with sugary cereal commercials and children. It’s to trick them into buying a product and children are especially vulnerable to these practices.

The videos are literally just to manipulate kids into buying things. It’s primarily the principle of it people dislike. Sports, makeup, and video game streamers are all showing off how good they are at DOING something. Unboxing videos are about buying.

I really dislike children watching YouTube at all though, because so many creeps have infiltrated it. It only takes a couple of clicks to get to a really ugly side of the internet where things can’t be unseen. Young children don’t need access to that. I’m also anti-consumerist, so I’m super biased.

Video gaming videos can be about showing skill...but they can also be about showcasing product. There are lots of influencers who get support, $$$ and PR from big games companies because they play their games and showcase them in a way that makes other people want to buy them. Part of the viral success of Fortnite, for example, was because of the nature of the game makes it easy to showcase on social media, which in turn made people more aware of it. There's a reason why Twitch is a profitable video game platform and why some streamers can make $$$ by streaming games.

Same thing in the beauty industry. There are lots of beauty 'gurus' on YouTube who receive free product from companies for the purpose of showcasing/using it in a video with the hope that viewers will purchase it. LOTS of makeup videos on YouTube are simply about showing swatches and performance rather than specific techniques and skills.

That’s super true, and I also think those things are weird! While I love both video games and makeup, I don’t really watch YouTube videos for this reason. I’m tired of being told I need to buy things.

If people want to watch those things though, more power to them!

I have a problem with unboxing videos aimed towards children because they are so unaware that they are being manipulated (although same goes for many adults). Consumerist videos aimed towards preying on children leave me with an uneasy feeling.

I’m not suggesting we ban them or anything, I just personally wouldn’t let my (hypothetical) children watch them and I don’t watch any myself.

It’s long form advertising targeting children, using all the same methods they know will work to manipulate them. Why would I rip that away from my kid? Because I care about my kid, and there are enough commercials and advertisements already... and enough actual quality content, there’s no reason to direct the kid’s attention to this clearly loaded, sponsored content instead.

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I did the same with my 3 year old. Now she only has PBS Videos and PBS games. I caught her watching Mr Rogers the other day. 💜 Speaks to his charisma, as she usually only has interest in girly princess stuff lately.

Everything about Mister Rogers' show was optimized based on child development. I think that is why so many children are drawn to him despite there being nothing particularly flashy about his program. Your daughter might like him because he is one of the few adults she can understand. Here is some more info:

The average adult speaks at a rate of almost 170 words per minute. But the average 5- to 7- year-old processes speech at a rate of only 120 words per minute... How slow? Think Mr. Rogers.

"There's a reason children were so captivated and mesmerized by Mr. Rogers," Hull said. "He may have been one of the only adults many children were able to understand."

The late Fred Rogers, of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," kept children's attention because he practiced speaking at a rate of about 124 words a minute, Hull said.

The pace may sound awkward, even ridiculous, to adults. But to children accustomed to hearing only bits of sentences or garbled phrases, it is sheer relief.

"In young children, the central nervous system has to mature just like the rest of them. And it does so slowly, over time," Hull said.

Totally. My almost 4 year old doesn’t even know what you tube is. She has a couple shows she can watch and I put them on for her. I can’t even let her browse Netflix herself because there’s some garbage there too.

Well. At the risk of people saying I’m crazy...I know everyone is different with what they like for their kids. We avoid things like Barbie, Princess Sophia, Care Bears drives me nuts. True Magic Kingdom makes me want to scream. Kate and Mim Mim. My little pony...goes on and on. There are a lot of shows that are really bright colors and obviously draw kids in but don’t add anything. Just annoying weird songs and flashy characters.

I try to keep it as simple and educational for her. She loves watching nature shows. Big into animals. She only has a few that she really watches. Super Why, cat and the hat, she loves Masha and the Bear. Which used to bug me but has grown on me.

Ah gotcha. I agree with watching more educational shows too. Right now we watch Puffin Rock and Octonauts and they usually throw in animal facts which I think is neat. My baby’s still at that age where she doesn’t care much about what she watches, it’s mostly to have on as background noise when it’s just the two of us

That’s not true actually. She likes to play “teacher” with me and sits me down with her chalkboard and tells me different facts she knows. Some from shows she’s watched. Some also made up. But some stuff is sticking in there and she’s excited to share.

Same for my toddler. We had the YouTube kids app on our iPad and the videos just got so weird. I never saw anything inappropriate, but just adults dressing up as elaborate characters and doing weird dances and weird songs or the same song over and over in different variations. Just bizarre stuff. So we deleted the app. He can watch tv on the PBS Kids app and play games but no more YouTube.

Same for my toddler. We had the YouTube kids app on our iPad and the videos just got so weird. I never saw anything inappropriate, but just adults dressing up as elaborate characters and doing weird dances and weird songs or the same some over and over in different variations. Just bizarre stuff. So we deleted the app. He can watch tv on the PBS Kids app and play games but no more YouTube.

I’m not a mom and never will be, but this subreddit has given me the opinion that no young kid should be allowed on YouTube unsupervised. This shit is way too easy to stumble upon from related videos to completely appropriate things.

We just did the same thing with our 4yr old. We had YouTube kids on the iPad. He would flirt through videos pretty’s fast and we also saw some weird ones that we called it and deleted it. Netflix only now.

I deleted the YouTube kids app from my iPad, but somehow my 3yo son found out how to access it through safari, I have no idea how he did it. I always have to make sure he isn’t on safari. He is allowed to watch Netflix or Nick Jr.

The second way was a better one. Given loads of time and resources, you could theoretically build a firewall to block traffic from YouTube, but you'd also need to block all the IPs and ports of every VPN service you could assume your kid could get their hands on, and ensure that they can't download any new web browser apps (this is harder than it seems, they can download the .apk files from their preexisting web browser or even move the file from another computer onto their phone via usb/bluetooth file transfer, and when you block YouTube, that block needs to affect your devices too. The problem with the internet is it's designed to be accessed by everyone, and it is incredibly difficult to prevent an imaginitive kid with loads of time to waste from slipping through your virtual barriers. Depending on how young and or inexperienced with technology your kid is, easier solutions will work. But the real test is, your child can make his device connect to the internet as your phone.

Massive respect.
Saw a news report on a child who the parents were using the tablet as a pacifier for this 7 year old and he found a "kid" video that abruptly told him to commit suicide. The news agency wouldn't touch on the concept that the parents were damned morons and only focused on the video. Only idiots let their small children browse the net without supervision.

My daughter is 5 and she’s only allowed to use amazon free time, which is only children’s content and parents can set many limits in regards to what kids can access and when. It came with a free subscription for the first year we got our kindle kids version and we have kept it since.

Sure, sure. We use various versions of the e-ink-based Kindles a lot here, so I was just thinking a parent trying to add more parental locks to their kid's e-book reader: "No... erotic literature for you!"

Hey there! My oldest and youngest both have a screen time limit, and the only things that they’re allowed to watch on the computer is Coyote Peterson, and sites like abcmouse, nickjr, and Disney. I suggest limiting the screen time, make a nightly routine of connecting with your child over reading, walking, doing a puzzle, etc. If you replace some of the current screen time with time from you I’m sure there will be no objection.

And if worse comes to worse disconnect the speakers and “Oh look Johnny, the sound isn’t working, looks like we will have to find something else to do!”

In addition to what you said, if you’re constantly on your phone and your child(ren) are seeing that all of the time, then that’s learned behavior. Don’t ignore your children for your phone. I don’t have kids but I see this all of the time from friends and strangers alike.

Coyote Peterson is a phenomenal educational channel and I’m so happy to see someone else speaking highly of him. You let them watch all of his sting and bite videos? Those are hard for me to watch, couldnt imagine what a kid might think!

Oh he’s amazing! I do let them watch the stinging and bite videos, it’s a way for them to learn just how painful nature can be and while these creatures are important and pretty to look at, we need to keep our distance, and here’s why. It’s a very important message that he repeats non-stop. They wince and shout the occasional “OWWWW” but other than that it’s nothing but solid nature education!

i have to disagree with disconnecting the speakers and trying to pass off the 'sound not working' as if you don't know the cause.. because soon as the child figures out why, they'll either just plug it back in, or depending on how you react, make the connection that you had been deceptive annd breaks their trust

I'm not a mother, but I plan to be one day and I've thought about this a lot because of my own experiences. I hope it's still okay for me to answer!

I'm 20, but I grew up with not all, but most, of what we've got today. I got my first phone when I was around 10 and it was a regular ass phone, kids these days get them around 8-9 I think. Idk.

But I was groomed, on an app called kik, by a grown man. Thankfully after a while I felt something was odd and blocked him, but there are girls that haven't been so lucky. I was also threatened by someone who claimed to be a grown woman, saying send nudes or they will photoshop my face on naked bodies and post it everywhere - to a 10 year old that was fucking terrifying.

So when I think about how strong social media/internet usage culture will be by the time I have a child, I get terrified.

I have the plan to monitor her (assuming i have a daughter, cos i want one. it would be the same for a boy though) usage until 13. Perhaps only having the phone when she is at school (so she can contact me if she needs to) and when we are together at home. No having it when she's alone in her room, no having it in the bathroom, etc.

I also plan on having her read the book Want to go Private? by Sarah Litteman. I read it when I was 12 and it's about a girl who meets a man online, he grooms her by faking the same interests, listens to her family problem and convinces her he's the only one who will love her. After some grooming time, they meet. And things go south. It's a very accurate depiction of the way this happens in today's world and sure and is the book that made me realized that man, when I was 10, was grooming me with the intent to meet and god knows what else.

Maybe it's odd that I think about this so much, considering I'm childless and very young, but....I really want kids. And I really want to figure out how to keep those kids safe in the world we live in.

I'm glad there's a book about that. I'm 38, first online at 13, and almost immediately acquired a much older 'friend' with whom I would have regular phone sex (via family landline, clueless family). I thought I was a 100% grown-ass woman then, just having a secret affair because society was dumb.

I'm not a parent yet, but I have thought about this quite a bit since I grew up in the generation where at first we didn't really have technology and then by Middle School cell phones and computers were becoming a thing. I knew how to hide things as a kid and make it look like I wasn't doing anything because I was curious. So I always worried that I'll think I know what my kid will be looking at, but who knows what they'll do even in that moment I'm not looking. I honestly think I'm going to be one of those parents that just doesn't let my kid watch much YouTube. I'm hoping that if they don't really know what they're missing out on they won't be dying to watch it. You can see some pretty nasty stuff on YouTube because it gets past the filters. I remember accidentally finding Gore, actual scenes of death and live birthing videos etc as a preteen when I wasn't even looking for them. I know the algorithm has gotten better for that kind of stuff, but with tons of videos being uploaded a second lots of stuff gets past filters even if it's only for a little bit.

I got pretty much full access to the Internet when I was 8 or 9. All in all, they just told me that I should tell them if I saw something that scared me or seemed malicious. Plus the usual about not giving away my address and stuff. And it worked! I really felt like I could trust them and confide in them, and that they were there to guide and help me.

I think a lot of parents are unnecessarily paranoid. It makes sense since you haven’t experienced growing up with the Internet yourselves -but just remember that all the Internet is is a new method of doing pre-existing things. Back in the day, kids also watched scary movies to feel tough with their friends, watched toy advertisements that made them beg for something totally disappointing and unnecessary, there were also predators out to get them. But y’all turned out fine, didn’t you? But I don’t know this might be a cultural thing -American parenting overall seem strict to me, or maybe it’s just Reddit.

I’d lastly like to emphasize the immense potential video games or even social media has for play. When I played Minecraft, I played “house” with my friends -that game is more fun with zombies, let me tell you. My first Instagram was used to draw characters that me and my friends would play complicated fantasy imaginary games with. We played Hollywood movie stars when we filmed stupid clips with my phone. And so on. Your technology are tools, they are what you make of them.

True. Just a lot of people in here saying “I can’t imagine what it’s like to grow up with YouTube and Instagram”. The Internet when you were seven were quite different than what it is today, after all.

Ugh, 29 here, and I totally agree that real-name social media broke the dream of the Internet. I used to go by fake names and handles as a kid on the Internet. Completely for privacy reasons. I would bet you still can do this now, except with everything connected now, then you would have to be extra careful to get away with it.

I have been using computers/tech since 5 y/o. Internet since 7. Not everyone our age has had this luxury to grow up with computers and the Internet since such a young age.

Maybe not since that young for sure—most families didn't have internet access in 1995. But by the time we were early teens it was part of teen culture (we even had a website in my town you could check for parties...it would tell you where they were, where there parents, what time...). It was crowdsourced and even people from the "bad" neighborhoods had access to it.

Nobody wants to feel older than they really are lol. You’re right that we didn’t have Instagram, but we did share videos and stuff, and I had MySpace when I was like... 12 maybe? Idk what that person meant exactly about real name social media, because MySpace, and what was there before it? AIM and forums? But messaging and forums still exist, like you said.

No offense, but I think your view of things is not very realistic. I’m going on 28 and I have had internet since I was a kid. If anything, the internet was more of a threat back “in my day” because parents were not as aware of it and what their kids were doing on it. I grew up in the generation of shock porn and unmonitored chatrooms as a rite of passage because nobody knew better. The same generation that is now raising the very young ones, so they know what they’re talking about.

Get this: there were even memes already in the 90’s/early 2000’s. Pretty wild.

The major difference I see between internet access when I was 15 and internet access now (other than real-life social media) is smartphones. Always-on internet access is what's really different, but even those are not really new.

The internet’s been around longer than you have been alive, so I’m fairly positive there’s a ton of parents out there who used the internet as kids. People start having kids in their 20s, not in their 50s.

This is a very insightful comment and it's good to hear from the perspective of young people what their experiences are with different styles of parenting. Thanks for sharing! It seems to me that 8/9 is the ideal age to let people start having autonomous relationship with the internet since that's when we start to exercise a strong critical thinking and first independence. Sounds like your parents set you up well in many ways.

Also: the hard time you're getting for the "you didn't grow up on the internet" comment, just ignore it. Even if it's not entirely accurate, there's a huge difference from our generation on the internet as children and yours. Your points are valid and stand to reason.

I also wonder sometimes if part of the push to scare parents from letting their kids on the internet is to keep kids from educating each other social media. As you said, the internet can be an amazing tool for helping young people get connected to each other - and a world much wider than their immediate community. I fully believe it has the power disrupt and change our culture on so many levels, both good and bad. I say we lean into the good.

I agree 8-9 seems like a good age to me. And besides, before that I wasn’t even terribly interested in the Internet. I just used my dad’s iPad to play games on and my cellphone (that was a smartphone) to call and text people.

I’m 36 and agree with this so much. You can’t completely shelter your kids from the real world, including the Internet. But you can foster a relationship of open communication where they feel like they can come to you when they inevitably encounter disturbing things.

I think a lot of parents are unnecessarily paranoid. It makes sense since you haven’t experienced growing up with the Internet yourselves -but just remember that all the Internet is is a new method of doing pre-existing things

beg to differ, my paranoia is because I did grow up with internet... and things seem to have only gotten worse/more unhealthy since then, eg the pressure to be instagramming all the time.

Pressure to be instagramming? I certainly don’t relate to this, the people I see that are the most active on social media are adults with Facebook status updates. Most of my classmates post a picture maybe every other month.

There is a lot of pressure in this world that I get and experience, pressure to be active on the Internet certainly isn’t one of them.

My mother always tried to limit my internet usage through those programs, blocking Facebook, YouTube, miniclip and whatever else I was on at the time. Problem was I knew how to turn the program off/on and would turn it off every time I wanted to go on FB

Do you take issue with it as a breach of your privacy or you don’t really care? Just wondering since you’re 16 and I remember yelling at my parents for this stuff 😂

It started when I was 12 and I was really upset, I found out that my laptop wasn't connected by accident though. I ended up pirating horror movies and making some unhealthy friendships online. When they found out about everything and made sure all my devices were monitored I felt like it was fair, since I'd made poor choices before. They give me freedom mostly, they just limit my screentime to 3 hours a day, which seems fair to me.

My parents used windows' parental control I think until I went to college and thus had bought my own laptop. I'm actually curious if there are parents of teens who have a better system for keeping their kids safe online and making sure they're responsable with balancing studies and everything else because my parents heavily restricted us and then it was home free when I went off to college...not saying there weren't other factors but I had a pretty bad GPA.

I am a second child so my mom’s fears kind of wore off till i became active on the internet. Her and my sister just warned me of the dangers and i kind of taught myself how to be safe, no one was really monitoring me though

I see this as so infantalizing and such a breach of privacy. Does it bother you? My parents weren't like this with my internet usage, but they were with every other area of my life. It was awful, and I am still resentful of them because of it.

I agree, although when I was in high school people were still figuring out the internet. I don't thing they had as many parent blockers available. I probably destroyed our family computer downloading music on LimeWire. As a new parent, I recoil a bit at the idea of parental blockers, but I also don't have a kid old enough to need them yet.

I explained more up there ^ but at the time I was making poor choices and I think it was justified. They do still do things like skim my texts sometimes and that really bothers me but they've gotten better about it lately.

This is what I find so funny. My husband is a software engineer and am a 3D modeler and web designer. We are both obviously tech smart, are familiar with various OS, programming languages, IDEs, computer hardware and software. We have a 7 and 3 yr old right now. I feel like if they manage to outsmart us on the technology front some day when they are older, we might be more impressed than we are mad, hahaha.

My son is almost 12. When he was young we'd watch educational kiddy cartoons while eating a leisurely breakfast and then the TV would be off until after his bed time. My husband and I didn't have smart phones back then and when we got a tablet it was an adult only device. My son had a few kid appropriate video games for our Xbox and Wii that he would play for a little while and then lose interest in. Though, I credit a Sesame Street video game with finishing off teaching my son his letters, numbers, shapes, and phonics when he refused to play educational games with me one on one when he was three.

My son got his own tablet at around 8 years old. He got his own Xbox and TV with a Roku for his room a year later. He got a gaming computer a year after that. At the beginning of 6th grade he got a school issued laptop. Last Christmas he got a smartphone.

My son doesn't have any "screen time" limits. He plays video games or watches Youtube or whatever whenever and for as long as he wants. There are parental controls on his devices. All electronics must be off at bed time. Sleep hygiene is important so I don't even let him have the TV on in his room after bed time.

Essentially, my kid got very little screen time when he was young but has very few limits now that he is older. How's that work out? Well, pretty damn well actually! He mostly watches TV shows or plays video games in the evening after supper until bed time. He's on screens in the morning on the weekends until he feels up and at 'em and then he's off to go play outside. He spends the bulk of his free time outside riding his bike and doing kid stuff with his friends. He's got the ability to self regulate with electronic entertainment and that's what the end goal is.

Not a parent but I talk to kids about responsible internet use as part of my job and my rules are always this:

There are two types of potential Internet dangers. These are external dangers (the words and actions of other people) and internal dangers (your words and actions while online).

The Internet is a public space. It’s like a massive city centre. Your parents wouldn’t let you hang around the city centre for, say, 5+ hours so they’re not going to let you be online for 5+ hours.

If you wouldn’t say it / do it / share it with a stranger who approached you in the street, do NOT share it online.

Whatever you post stays on the Internet forever. Be wise in your choices.

There are dangers, untruths and predators on the Internet, just like there would be in the non-digital world but it’s easier for these things to disguise themselves on the Internet - if you struggle to identify these, rely on help from parents, guardians, teachers etc.

If you’re worried about anything you’ve seen/done/had said or done to you on the Internet - tell someone!

You are who you are when no one is looking. You may feel the Internet isn’t a ‘real’ place or that what you say/do there ‘doesnt count’ but it’s our biggest means of communication and if you’re choosing to be unkind online, then you’re choosing to be unkind full stop and that’s a bad choice.

Trust your parents and let them guide you. Just like you trust them to help you navigate the potential dangers of the world, you need them to help you navigate the potential dangers of the Internet.

Obviously the kids I’m talking to are a bit older but it made a fair few of them stop and think. Most of them think of the Internet as some kind of massive, never-ending toy. Getting them to see it as a tool to be used responsibly is key.

Stalking this thread. My 12 year old niece is an absolute nightmare and has already been caught doing things online she shouldn’t be doing. She used to be my little sweetheart but jfc kids these days are 12 thinking they’re 20. As the mother of a 6 year old girl, I’m terrified for what’s to come.

ETA: For right now, my daughter has an Amazon kindle with the kids free time program on it. She can access a bunch of age appropriate apps as well as Netflix and iheart radio. I have to option to allow YouTube but I’m gonna avoid it as long possible.

I’m hoping that by the time she’s old enough for a phone there’s some kid-friendly smart phone available. I’m really uncomfortable with children carrying around iPhones with unlimited access to the internet.

Preach! We have no TV in our house. Kid is 6, she can request to watch with me or her other parent on a computer or one of our devices. Movies are voted on by the whole family on specific nights of the week and we use a projector for that. She does have unfettered access to a 1980s music station through her radio, which seems like the right amount of agency right now. My partner works in tech and I’m in marketing, we know all about internet influence and perils. She’s not getting her own device for awhile.

No YouTube on their TVs upstairs. No YouTube on tablets. Only on the TV in the family room.

Internet is okay on the main PC because I’ve got it locked down well enough as far as it goes and that’s also in the family room screen facing the kitchen which you can seen through the whole house. We live in a row style house it’s long.

I allow them to explore but they still need some boundaries. The internet is an awesome tool but they both know it’s a dark and scary place.

My 10 year old can play some multiplayer steam games but I check it often no mics and he’s not allowed to type anything.

The rules that are in place were agreed upon by both him and me. He came to me wanting to play some games where the communities can be a bit older so we agreed that if he wanted to play he couldn’t take part in the conversations. Usually the chat is disabled.

He doesn’t fight me on it he would rather be able to play a game rather than not be able to because of the community.

This is mostly for steam games because his friends aren’t on steam they are on console.

But I’m open to discussions with him I want him to be able to help set boundaries so he doesn’t feel the need to cross them. He is a great kid but he is still just a kid and needs that guidance.

This makes more sense. I would have felt incredibly oppressed being unable to type. I suppose it depends on what game he plays. The more child friendly games (minecraft, roblox, etc) are more dominated by children, and so he wouldn't nessecarily come in contact with strangers talking about adult topics. I made a lot of friends online, even as a little kid, and couldn't imagine not being able to even type to them. This is probably the more responsible approach.

I totally get that. I want him to know he has a say but I also have experience in the gaming community so I am just looking out for him.

It’s a happy medium and as he has gotten older we have changed things accordingly. Surprisingly I’ve had more issues out of his IRL friends being a-holes to each other than some of the people he’s met playing Little Big Planet and Minecraft. 🤦🏻‍♀️

It’s not hard. I’m tired of people thinking this is such a battle. You simply say no. Turn it off. We love playing video games, Netflix and lots of fun apps. But not all day everyday. Once it’s time to turn it off we turn it off. My kids aren’t allowed YouTube but. It’s just a rubbish site.

Actually there’s a lot of good on YouTube as well. CoilBook, for example, produces great educational content that I cannot recommend highly enough. You just have to be willing to do the work of engaging with your kid rather than relying on corporate curators to do it for you.

My 5 year old is allowed YouTube in the living room when we’re around. We’ve explained to him that YouTube is mostly “junk food tv” and he knows that he has to watch “healthy food tv” as well (Super Why, Magic School Bus, etc).

(Also, downvoted for the “it’s not hard” comment. Don’t mistake your good fortune in being blessed with a reasonably tractable child for personal accomplishment. Any parent of multiple children can tell you that some kids are just easier than others. My son is very obedient, and his father and I certainly work to encourage that trait, but at bottom it’s just in his nature to keep the peace.)

I fully agree with you that this actually is "kinda hard". This thread got me and my partner discussing what we'll do when we have kids. We're very much on the same page and yet we realize we're not entirely sure about how much we'd want to limit screen time in general. That one we would have to research more. And especially avoid the mistakes our own parents made. Eg, mine lived in the country and didn't do that much with us, so there just wasn't much to do without a screen. And my dad was a hypocrite, as he'd watch TV for hours, but somehow my video games were bad.

And our take on this beyond the early childhood years is a bit different from most of the posters here. We want to focus more on transparency, good communication, and educating the kid as opposed to monitoring and limiting them. We both very much value the kid's right to privacy. The fact that we're disagreeing with some other well voted comments here show how this really isn't simple and highlights the value of discussing it.

I think about how my own parents did it. They did good at giving me privacy from a reasonable age. Their education was kinda mixed, since they had many misconceptions about the internet, but they did well at educating me of the broader risks (eg, child predators and sex ed). They never tried to restrict or judge on sex stuff (I find the idea of needing to be 18 to view porn to be silly, and think it's more important to educate your kids on sex ed, including how porn is unrealistic). Buuuut, the screen time was so limited for a long time. That would have been fine if not for the fact that I had no alternatives and the bit with dad watching TV all day. I know I will never, ever live in the country because that murdered my social life and pushed me to screens. My parents didn't pay too much attention to my social life and had no advice or anything there. I hope to avoid that mistake as a parent. I'm willing to be proactive in finding my future kids opportunities to meet people and have fun. At any rate, the fact that I differ so much from my parents further hints at how not easy this question is. I mean, I have overall good parents. But despite them being good and me now being old enough to understand their choices (mostly), I still see countless ways I want to do better.

I get it. Kids are hard. Trust me I know. I’ve got one kid who’s on the spectrum. What I mean is don’t make it any harder then it has to be. Don’t flip flop on your choices. Choose your boundaries and stick to them.

Was that the race with different colored cars, or the obstacle course with shapes?

It may be worth mentioning that our son primarily watched them from around 18 months to 3 years. By 2-1/2 he knew and could identify 2 and 3D shapes, colors, letters and the sounds associated with each letter. I’d love to believe he’s a super genius, but I really think it was just that the series was very engaging and enjoyable for him.

No, something about a time-traveling police car. It was like really low-budget Cars.

Edit: So I guess I'll keep looking.

FWIW, my daughter's at two and half and is in a similar place. She sang herself to sleep in the car today with the alphabet song, but I don't think she gets "D makes a dee sound", "F makes an eff sound", and so on yet; she's only just begun to see the connection there.

It may seem like I'm thinking too much into this but I'm just looking to find a balance. I know the importance of saying no, and we do have rules, but I also don't want them to feel left out because they can't be a part of what most of their peers are into.

And they’ll eventually get exposed to it through their friends, it’s an inevitable event. Which is even scarier because you won’t be there monitoring the content. It’s such a new thing that we will all learn by trial and error because this is the first generation ever to have this kind of ability to watch, add and interact with others with little to no filter, that’s why balance and ground rules are important. Not just the ban of the site completely or indefinitely.

I learnt English at a faster rate and at a higher level, over my peers due to youtube. Too me it seems far fetched to say it is rubbish. Add that to all of the random thing I learnt. It was a big part of me finding topics I liked and learning more than what school could offer. Why isolate your kids from all the good that is entertaining learning.

Not necessarily. You can say no without it being a fight/power struggle... you can explain the reason and how avoiding certain actions keeps you safe. Like, don’t touch the stove when it’s on. It’s hot, and it will hurt you. We use it to cook food, so it’s good that it gets hot, but we also need to be safe. If you can and do explain things in a way that your child understands you, they’re a lot less likely to do it because “Fuck you, dad!”

They’re going to rebel cause I won’t give them endless screen time and YouTube? Come on. I’m sure when they’re old enough they’ll be watching all sorts from online. My oldest son has his own channel, but he’s 17. It’s a lot different then a 4yo

Did I say I was god? OP asked about what you do when it comes to kids and the internet. So I gave mine. They’re literally 4 and 9. 9yo has barely any comprehension on how the world works. He’s about the age of a 6yo. I’m not going to let young kids decide on what they can and can’t watch. My 17yo is a totally different story. I have investigated, we’ve had the app. I don’t think it’s appropriate without having to sit and monitor it the entire time. Why would I want my kids to play an app that could potentially lead them to videos that aren’t appropriate. I get that everyone else loves it. That’s cool. You do you.

I apologize for not being a woman, but I have a five year old, so I have experienced first hand.

The key to all this is to just keep an ear out for what’s coming across their tablet. Even with YouTube kids, there will be things as a parent you don’t like them watching. They will mimic behavior you don’t like, so it’s up to you to tell them those things are unacceptable and don’t watch them. As far as I know, you cannot individually block channels on YTK.

Hopefully, your ideals and standards translate to the child as they get older and are essentially on their own on regular YouTube. You may not be able to keep as much of an ear out but logging in on the same email and seeing their view history may help keep them inbounds.

That I do not know. That’s all up to your parenting style. I know a guy with two teenage daughters. He has their Apple passwords so from his laptops he reads all their texts, app downloads, find my iPhone, etc. he sees that as a bare minimum for them to have phones and leave the house. Most are more liberal than that.

Honestly, I don’t think you can. My parents work as foster parents on a boys ranch. They take care of 8 boys from 9-18. She fights an uphill battle. She confiscates their phone for things and if she goes into their room two days later and searches, she will find four iPhones that they’ve gotten from people at school. Same with Juul. Two weeks ago she confiscated the phone of one of her 12 year olds and found hardcore torture porn downloaded on it. She has found videos save to their phones of them having sex with female students on school property. The easy answer is to say “Well, just don’t let them have it.” But it’s not that easy because they easily get it from their peers at school. Unless you homeschool them, they’re going to have access to it. And even if you homeschool them you can’t helicopter parent them all the time. I think all you can do is sit them down as early as possible and educate them about the internet and social media. All you can do is hope that when they’re alone that they make good choices.

I have just been very honest with my daughter about the dangers of the internet. We watch shows like Web of Lies which shows kids being raped/killed after talking to strangers online and giving out their info etc. We talk about it and what the consequences can be. I told her how porn isn't how sex really works and all that. There's no 100% way I can protect her or watch her. The internet is everywhere and kids always find a way to do shit they shouldn't. So, I'm just arming her with information and hoping for the best.

Same here. I tried to ban it at first, but it's not working. Now, I talk to her about how easy it is to be followed and stalked. I am trying to explain how dangerous it is to have all those people online. She is becoming addicted I'm afraid. We also watch "To catch a predator" but I'm still so nervous.

We have an amazon kids tablet with 2 hours of screen time limit, only on weekends, with no access to any internet browsing and she can only interact with things on the amazon app. Shes 5.

I'm not sure when I'll allow youtube outside of me driving what we watch, probably when I feel like shes mature enough to not be influenced by its toxicity. I'm more afraid of her talking like some of those streamers than I am afraid of online predators.

I'm a gamer myself and work in games..but that almost makes me more uncomfortable with the thought of my daughter watching things like pewdiepie.

Honestly, I don't think there's a perfect way. Every parent is struggling with this right now. And that's perfectly logical, no need for anyone to criticise them. See, for everything regarding parenting you have a natural frame of reference: your own parents. We often pick up their parenting styles and we fall back on the rules we know and used to follow. But there is no precedent for technology as it is now. These parents are the first generation and I think they deserve some credit for that.

I have 2 sons, 7 and 11. Both have access to Youtube, but not the rest of the internet. If they need to google something for school, I will do it. We have a rule that no internet is allowed upstairs, and our downstairs is very open plan so I can see their screens whenever. The 7 year old watches Youtube on the Xbox on the main TV and the 11 year old on his tablet. They are only allowed to watch videos from "approved" Youtubers, basically ones that we know are responsible and safe, we have a list of about 15 accounts that i subscribe to on my account, and trust. I'm lucky in a way, both my kids are huge nerds and watch really specific videos that are as dull as ditch water to me. eg my youngest is currently watching a guy repairing a switch controller.

If they want to watch a video from someone we have not approved, they have to ask and we can approve it for them if its ok. I cant remember ever having to tell them no, due to very boring content!

They are also not allowed to friend anyone or use chat boxes in any games (except one the 11 year old plays because you can only add people by email address, so its definitely his friends, due to me having added them from their mums emails)

If they do not follow the rules, the trust is gone and so is tech access.

​

These rules are working well for us. i dont think it will continue to work like this as he gets older and into teen things, but hopefully we have a good basis of trust set up in preparation. I'm dreading when he wants snapchat or instagram. I'm not sure how to treat that, but will cross the bridge when he asks!

Parental controls and screen limits help. My kids are 12 & 15. It wasn't an issue until they started going to friend's houses.

We have a Circle by Disney for devices used at home. My oldest has a cell phone and limited monthly internet.

We do have Netflix and Amazon Prime. They know R and MA are off the table unless approved by a parent. For most of their childhood, we only had antenna stations and they watched PBS kids.

They are at the age where they could find access if they wanted. They both have friends with TVs in their rooms and unlimited internet access. Basically, a lot of communication about what is appropriate.

I’m a teenager and I’m going to answer this question even tho I am not a mother. I’ve never had rules for internet. It’s because my parents don’t see a threat in the internet so I’m mostly allowed to do everything I want, I can chat with unknown people and I can go on which site I want. I also have a sister and she is 3. She got a tablet for her birthday and is allowed to use it for youtube and games. The thing is, there are no parental restrictions so if she was smart enough she could watch anything on youtube (she is 3 after all) and there is restricted content that she shouldn’t be able to see. I don’t think it’s a problem as I’m aware of the stuff happening online and I know I shouldn’t trust strangers. But I also know there are teenagers girls like myself who also have no boundaries online and that are not so aware of the people wandering on websites that may seem appropriate. (Example: i saw on tv a 13 year old girl who killed her parents!! So she could run away with her 18-year old boyfriend whom she never met beside on facebook)

My kids are 10 and 5. My oldest has had his own iPad since he was 5 and now has his own laptop. My 5 year old has her own iPad. Both have Netflix (kids) profiles on our account and they play games on our consoles. So in short, they’re very connected.

I do this because this is the future and they need to know how to handle computers and digital technology. We talk a lot about online safety and we have appropriate parental controls set. I would rather teach them how to safely and properly use these tools than restrict them from use and either cause them to sneak access elsewhere or just be behind when they need the information.

Educate them about the dangers of the internet... A lot. Use the online parental blocks but at the same time, we do not shield our kids from everything.

Real life isn’t shielded. I recently ran across a couple downing a mom for letting her kid listen to Post Malone?? I mean, really? I don’t think gays and lesbians should be shielded from kids, not drinking beer. Point is, some people take the shielding and what they can and can’t watch way too far. It’s all about balance.

screen time is normally ipad (no surfing the internet, just apps with purchases turned off), programming saved to a stick stuck in our tv or using my laptop on youtube in a public space with no headphones.

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my son (7) generally watches stuff that other 7 year olds would find "babyish" my daughter (5) as well. the reason is that i only allow them to watch things i've approved of (and i'm strict). i'm a teacher by training (although currently home) so i'm really picky about content being "educational". usually they are watching things like dinosaur train, kratts creatures, daniel tiger, some german cartoon shows we watched when we lived there, etc... just recently my son has gotten into minecraft so he now watches minecraft tutorials, but i have only approved two youtube channels he can watch. i've taught him how to go back to the channel to find new videos, so he's not allowed to just click on the "suggested" videos. my daughter likes "how to cook that" (which is going to ruin my life when birthdays come this year since now i have to up my cake game). before that my son was obsessed with marble run videos, again...i approved one or two channels and that is what he watched, if he wanted to try a different one we would watch it together i would make a decision and tell him why.

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they get about an hour of screen time a day and a movie on fridays (which they have to watch in german because we just recently moved away from germany and i don't want them to lose their german (they are...but...i'm trying).

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they know why we're so strict. we've told them. they sometimes watch sports with their dad and often the ads are confusing for them (for other shows on the network etc...) because they seem...to be honest...pretty scary. but we talk with them about it and it's fine. they also sometimes watch woodworking, or tooling videos with their dad.

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i use screen time generally in the hour before dinner (when i am preparing it) so i can hear what they are watching. i wish i could say it was relaxing, but it's not, because i AM listening to what they are watching to make sure it's appropriate. they are never allowed to use either of our phones. if i think i need to use screens to keep them entertained for some reason i bring ipads. we also bring ipads on planes (we fly a lot) because often the "kids content" is too scary for them. my son still refuses to try "how to train your dragon" again because he saw it a year ago on our flight here from germany and it scared him. we can't figure out what it was that scared him...but he is VERY sensitive (saw his first movie in the theater this week with me (lego 2) and was SO sad about the toys being packed away...SO sad. he held it together and loved the movie at the end, but the idea of separation is always hard on him).

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i consider a lot of content that others would consider benign as harmful as well. i really dislike the portrayal of dysfunctional relationships in sitcoms and so my kids can't watch those. i also dislike youth programming with saucy kids being rude to each other and adults (basically all of disney's programming) when we visit friends houses and my kids are asked if they want to watch tv i don't say anything, but i won't let them watch that stuff at home. they DO have a behaviour change after watching those shows and that's not how i want my kids to speak and interact.

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so basically, after writing this...i'm insanely strict.

i think it's worth it though.

my kids haven't complained yet. we DO watch tutorials together sometimes (i'm looking at you stupid floss and fortnite dances). we are also a very musical family, so we listen to music from youtube sometimes. in that case only "lyric" versions of the song or i blacken the screen. in this case it's not about "stupid sexy flanders" but rather that i hate the idea of a video dictating what my kid hears in the song, i like that they like a song for what it is. interestingly i don't really police music at all. my kids listen to whatever they want and we don't generally listen to radio edits (germany doesn't have such things and we just went with it) so we talk about how we don't use that language in our family and leave out those words. seems to work fine...so far...

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EDIT: i forgot to add that i am really against advertising to kids. so we have an a blocker on youtube, it's also another reason i don't let them watch tv (like regular tv) and one of the main reasons we use youtube to watch shows (from network channels, like pbs etc...)

we have strict rules in our home that are working so far.

screen time is normally ipad (no surfing the internet, just apps with purchases turned off), programming saved to a stick stuck in our tv or using my laptop on youtube in a public space with no headphones.

my son (7) generally watches stuff that other 7 year olds would find "babyish" my daughter (5) as well. the reason is that i only allow them to watch things i've approved of (and i'm strict). i'm a teacher by training (although currently home) so i'm really picky about content being "educational". usually they are watching things like dinosaur train, kratts creatures, daniel tiger, some german cartoon shows we watched when we lived there, etc... just recently my son has gotten into minecraft so he now watches minecraft tutorials, but i have only approved two youtube channels he can watch. i've taught him how to go back to the channel to find new videos, so he's not allowed to just click on the "suggested" videos. my daughter likes "how to cook that" (which is going to ruin my life when birthdays come this year since now i have to up my cake game). before that my son was obsessed with marble run videos, again...i approved one or two channels and that is what he watched, if he wanted to try a different one we would watch it together i would make a decision and tell him why.

they know why we're so strict. we've told them. they sometimes watch sports with their dad and often the ads are confusing for them (for other shows on the network etc...) because they seem...to be honest...pretty scary. but we talk with them about it and it's fine. they also sometimes watch woodworking, or tooling videos with their dad.

i use screen time generally in the hour before dinner (when i am preparing it) so i can hear what they are watching. i wish i could say it was relaxing, but it's not, because i AM listening to what they are watching to make sure it's appropriate. they are never allowed to use either of our phones. if i think i need to use screens to keep them entertained for some reason i bring ipads. we also bring ipads on planes (we fly a lot) because often the "kids content" is too scary for them. my son still refuses to try "how to train your dragon" again because he saw it a year ago on our flight here from germany and it scared him. we can't figure out what it was that scared him...but he is VERY sensitive (saw his first movie in the theater this week with me (lego 2) and was SO sad about the toys being packed away...SO sad. he held it together and loved the movie at the end, but the idea of separation is always hard on him).

i consider a lot of content that others would consider benign as harmful as well. i really dislike the portrayal of dysfunctional relationships in sitcoms and so my kids can't watch those. i also dislike youth programming with saucy kids being rude to each other and adults (basically all of disney's programming) when we visit friends houses and my kids are asked if they want to watch tv i don't say anything, but i won't let them watch that stuff at home. they DO have a behaviour change after watching those shows and that's not how i want my kids to speak and interact.

It is increasingly apparent that what is accessed isn't the only danger. I've been reading about these studies for a decade now (and there's a good book about this called "A Deadly Wandering"). Nobody seems worried about the cognitive impact of screen use on the whole, but everyone thinks the increase in certain diagnoses (e.g., ADHD) is about trying to pathologize kids' natural lack of ability to concentrate. I think there's a link there.

I think you'd like the book Last Child in the Woods. It's about how lack of outdoor play is harming kids' mental and physical health. And it doesn't place all of the blame on technology and it doesn't say that kids these days are just lazy, it actually goes into the barriers that prevent kids from outdoor play.

11 year old stepson. Parental blocks, parental blocks everywhere. YouTube and YouTube Kids is completely restricted due to failing grades. Video games and TV time are time capped but only accessible if all schoolwork and homework is completed, so he gets very little electronics access now because he hates schoolwork and just refuses to do it most of the time.

Last weekend he tried to have a hunger strike for fortnite because he didn't want to do his schoolwork. If we didn't make him finish schoolwork and let him play fortnite for an hour and a half, he would eat dinner. I told him we don't negotiate with terrorists. Then I ordered pizza and he ate anyway.

I'm a 25/m grad student in the VR tech/psychology field and this worries me constantly. I'm glad to see this sentiment shared. Particularly the nature of targeted YouTube content.

I agree that it's premature access and generational. I didn't own a cell phone until highschool and I got my first smartphone junior year of undergrad. All my peers had access before I did. It certainly sucks to be denied something all of your peers have been granted.

When I was younger my dad had a draconian parenting style and his clamp on parental controls were highly authoritarian. No internet traffic entered or left our living room computer unless it was accompanied by his admin password. This lead to my brother and I creating a fake desktop environment and skimming off his password. Children will find ways around parental blocks one way or another.

I'd rather my child develop an immune system to the technology than I just pretend I can jockey the cutting edge with them. I'd want to facilitate meaningful communication between us, and I see a lot of parents have mentioned that here already. I expect to change that perspective as my experience continues to widen.

The direction that YouTube's reenforcement algorithms have lead us has been bizarre. I think it's a sign of incredible negligence to pacify children with smart devices. Too much developmental psychology backs this up. As adults we are overencumbered daily by our own smart devices, yet many have no qualms about giving them to their children. There's a recent podcast between Sam Harris and Jonathan Haidt which covers this topic in depth.

The change in pace smartphones have produced is uncanny. I'm incredibly thankful to have complete control over my phone's notification settings and I'm glad to have only caught the tail end of it. Countless apps persistently compete to bait us for our attention. Its integration with social media turns meaningful interactions into virtual façades, YouTube's blind hand aims to maximize screentime and advertisers know plenty well how to game the system. Tabloid advertisement used to wait for us at checkout and now we carry it with us in our pocket.

I don't want to be authoritarian about content control, but I don't want my children to be left in the dark where it pertains to their social world.

The weirder you treat this era's primary method of communication, the weirder shit your kids will get into when you are away. Every parent thinks that access to information will destroy the youth, and every generation the youth turn out alright because all media ever was is other people. Fascism is taught first at home.

Parents, be aware that there are ways around parental blocking technology. As young as age 11, I was able to get around AOL kids parental controls by using babel fish translation of the website. I'd translate it from a random language to English and I could access any website I wanted. I also learned how to clear the website history. Needless to say, porn was viewed.

I was showing symptoms of bipolar disorder at the time and it was the way I dealt with hypersexuality. I did that and masturbated instead of acting out sexually with other people. I did feel guilty about it then, but now I don't. I do think if I tried to talk to other people through chat rooms more, that would've been very bad. I never wanted to meet people I talked to, but I bet kids with issues similar to mine could be very vulnerable to predators.

We recently bought an Orbi router for the internet that has Disney Circle built in. It's gamechanging as it gives myself and my wife the complete ability to block sites, enable age appropriate content, see history, or simply turn iff internet / reward internet at various times in the day.

I bought the stand alone Circle by Disney. You can set up your family and assign them devices. Each family member can have a time limit and bedtime. You can pause internet access for the whole household, or any individual, with the administrator app. You can also see what sites they are visiting and set up age limits.

Parental controls....lots of locks and shared accounts so I know what's being viewed.
Also it helps to limit their time on social media. Make them put the tablet and phone down and get the hell outside and get dirty and smelly like a normal kid.

My kids are 4 and 6 and they don't have access to the internet on their own. They have leap pad tablets that don't connect to the internet. Like someone else said it's also about communication I am constantly telling them they can tell me anything and when they do I listen. I know I can't shelter them forever and I don't want to, but there's some pretty bad stuff out there.

I'm a nanny. The parents I work for are very selective about what their kids (2 and 6) watch. No Disney/Nick after-school "older kid" programming, for example. For this reason (and also because it just weirds me out what's on there) I have a no-youtube rule unless I am with them. They only get half an hour of screen time a day, though, so it's never even really come up.

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If I had kids, I would have a similar set up (at least at this age). No screens except for in special cases (like travelling) and definitely no youtube. It is so easy to access appropriate content, why would I give them access to dubious content?

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My parents allowed me to watch a little TV, but I had no other screens until I got a job and bought them myself, at which point I was old enough that they didn't feel the need to be monitoring me. I think that was a good system.

My daughter is nearly 9, and has only recently (within the last 2 months) been given an iPad, I have the notification so when she downloads an app, I'm informed. But the best thing I think is sitting and playing with her on Roblox and watching her YouTube channels on the TV together, that way I know what she is talking about. We had a scary experience within the past week with another user asking for 'Sex' on roblox, but we dealt with it together and she went from never wanting to look at her ipad again to slowly getting back into it.

Ultimately, there’s nothing I can do. My opinion might change in a few years.... but I think of my upbringing, and my parents’ upbringings, and realize that we were exposed to a lot of harmful content and ended up relatively alright. My dad was old school, and didn’t let me or my sister watch “little kid shows,” but he would openly watch R rated movies in front of us. I saw Fargo at age 7. I saw the Twin Towers fall at 8. I heard about Abu Ghraib and saw the pictures of it by 10. My mom would watch Forensic Files throughout my childhood. I know my parents were kids when they saw the televised coverage of JFK being shot, the self-immolation of the Tibetan monk, and the Vietnam war. There’s always been very harmful things kids were exposed to via media through the last several generations, and most people ended up just fine

I'm not a parent. To be frank, I am honestly not sure how to deal with this.

Computers are very fundamental to our society, so to reject them would cause a lot of problems.

I definitely respect the view we should be cautious around them.

It's also what you do with a computer that matters. My personal postulate is that computers bring out more of what you already are and "speed up" things in general. A gifted child will go to Khan Academy. A child with issues will cause problems online.

I basically grow up around computers. I got one job because I used to study programming on my own.

You have to lock down their settings tight and check it from time to time. You also have to keep an eye on games with the chat feature bc that’s another way pedophiles get to them. I disable chat in the apps

Well, my step son is only 4. We usually don't let him use anything with internet or a screen. Netflix is the most we let him use and we sit with him to enjoy the shows too. Everything is monitored and kept within reach. We just had a serious talk with the baby sitter for letting him use her phone for youtube, communication with your kid and the other adults is key! Youtube is not allowed for him yet and we didn't appreciate him begging to watch silly videos from our phones. He knows the TV is a reward for good listening and nice behavior.

When he gets older, we will allow him to use the internet, for school and for limited entertainment purposes (until he's a teen, then we can't really control what he watches). Youtube and facebook will be allowed, but he will be informed of the dangers and the scary things that can happen if he misuses it.

Everything is on lock down. She does not have any access without permission. Seems excessive but she's only 8, very neive and impressionable. We do homeschool, so that limits the whole outside peer pressure influence which is nice. She is allowed YouTube kids via LeapSearch on her LeapPad. We also have an open door policy, she can come to us any time to ask us questions or show us something she saw that she's unsure of, etc; without fear of consequences.
We also have tried hard to make our home her safe place, we are weird parents that are okay with her using savory language if used in proper context just around her Dad and I. We also give her a lot of freedom to express herself. She has ADHD and we suspect ASD, but there is no reason in my opinion for her to have access to the internet unless it's school related.

Our kids are now adults, but they were on the computers when they were big enough to control a mouse. Internet wise, we used “Net Nanny” until they entered 7th grade. We also talked to our kids about Internet safety & when to know if “stranger danger” was in play. I was especially protective of our daughter about talking to men online.

My children don’t have tablets, phones, or iPads. They watch the one tv we have in the family room, so I always know what’s on. And even that is limited. It’s not that difficult to just remove the temptation entirely by actually knowing what your children have access to.

I use the Google family link app (it let's you limit time used, hours Available, and what they can and can't download. Also gives your a device tracker) and try to keep things open and honest with my kids (ages nine and eight). 95 percent of the time they share questionable things with me that I'm shocked at but infinitely grateful about because of our good relationship.

My 3 yo has a kids kindle. It has no access to YouTube or an internet browser. The camera is disabled. Microphone is disabled. Age filter set to ages 2-4. Aside from that we have no screen time restrictions in place, she uses it for maybe an hour per day. As she gets older the age restricted games and functions will be adjusted accordingly. The internet is a wonderful tool and I don’t think it’s good to shelter kids from it. Just being aware of what your kids are interested in, and keeping an open dialogue about what is/isn’t appropriate or safe could mitigate a lot of issues I think.

My almost-6-year-old had access to pretty much everything with no real content restrictions but that's mostly because there hasn't been an issue yet. He has his own account on Xbox and when it's set up as a kids account, it needs parental permission before you can access most things. Both my husband and I are also into Let's Plays and watch streamers so we know what things are child friendly and what aren't. So far he only watches things relevant to his interests, Cuphead and Minecraft videos for example.

On his tablet he has time restrictions and a hard bed time cut off, and that's all monitored through my phone. When you set up a tablet or a phone as a child device, you have a ton of options for what you want them to have and what you don't. So far the only things we've said no to are things that are clearly meant for adults, like a game called "Weed Inc" which is essentially just Farmville for stoners.

I don't know how much restriction we're going to have on browsing the internet, when my comes to that. We're a pretty liberal household and we're very aware that our kid is growing up in the age of information so we're just trying to take it as it comes and make decisions as we go.

In my personal experience though, it's not as terribly scary as I was led to believe it would be when I was thinking about it while pregnant.

He knows about Netflix and has his favourite shows (Masha and the Bear, Paw Patrol, Beat Bugs, and Pocoyo are the typical rotation). That one we give fairly unfettered use of (he only gets to use the kids profile, and I don't think I've ever seen him go to the other profiles for me, my husband or my parents before, he automatically goes to the kid's profile).

Youtube he isn't allowed on without my husband or I present. There's too much chance for him to end up on something that seems innocent from the thumbnail and it's got something awful hidden in it.

His regular rotation on Youtube is Lucas the Spider, anything PinkFong (the lovely people behind Baby Shark) and another youtube channel similar to PinkFong that I don't remember offhand. There's a ton of stuff that is re-uploaded of those channels and they often have odd distorted audio and those are automatic nopes and we take the phone away and redirect to a different video. He also does watch some of the stuff we watch as he likes their thumbnails, and I want to foster his ability to make decisions and communicate wants/needs with us. So I've ended up binge watching some really stupid stuff that comes up on my "you may like" feed on Youtube based on the thumbnail.

I know giving a child this young is controversial itself, but the way I figure is, technology is the future, it would be a disservice to keep him away from it at all times. We ensure he has a healthy relationship with phones/tablets/TV etc, but allow him access to it. We have Parental Controls on everything that can have them, and try and protect him from as much of the weird, scary, awful stuff on the internet. He's far too young to be exposed to the creepy shit on there.

I did not introduce my son (11 now) to utube until last year. He is old enough that he knows he cannot watch things with bad language or anything that goes against good morals.

As far as screens in general...it is so easy for anyone to get caught up in it. As someone also stated in their comment, I find myself caught up in the hypnotic transe sometimes and I definitely enjoy my TV shows. I think it's best to lead by example and show your child that you dont need screens to have fun.

Communication has been the number 1 thing that helps with all of it. I talk to my son about how silly some people can be on social media and that if he shares with his friends it should be good fun times, not something that will embarrass or bully another.

I also think it helps overall to have your child in extracirricular activities. It teaches them that they can be social without needing the electronics and that it is better for their body and mind to get out and do.

I’m so happy someone asked this question. I’m due with my first child in September and I’m really worried about how to navigate this. Really appreciate the suggestions here. Also YouTube Kids sounds like a den of horrors that needs to be eradicated from the earth...

My daughter is almost 2 and we let her watch YouTube, but only videos I choose and we watch it on tv over the chrome cast so I can see and hear everything. She loves music videos for little kids like Cocomelon videos and Baby Shark. Sometimes she gets to play with my iPad and watch YouTube kids but, she’s a toddler so everything is supervised.

I put restrictions on my child and monitor what she does online. Its easy; just say no. My 11yo doesn't have a phone even though most of her friends have had one since kindergarten; just last week she tried guilting me into getting her a phone. My advice is simple; pay attention to what your child is doing online, you don't have to give your child something just because everyone else has it, and tell them to go play outside. The most important part is to tell the children to go outside. I have become the house that all the neighborhood kids play at outside after school. I love hearing them be wild maniacs outside. If that doesn't work, take Bender's advice, "Have you ever tried just turning off the TV, sitting down with your children, and hitting them?"

I have a 3yo and a 6yo, they each have their own iPad. I periodically check on what they're watching, the 3yo just watches Mash'em videos or Blippi. I have seen one of those "Elsagate" videos come on just one time and just casually changed it.

My 6yo has autism and finds the absolute most autistic shit ever on YT, from these really intricate marble runs to dominoes to endless rows of dinosaurs walking past the camera and being named in a robot voice one by one. He's currently really into platform games and doesn't really watch a lot of YT.

I'm a dad, not a mom, but this is an issue I've given a lot of thought to, and I'm the primary screen time enforcer in our home.

We have a five-year-old son. I monitor him pretty closely. We don't keep any count of screen time, instead we have a schedule: he can do screen-based activities on weekends only. This works well for us, since I find that making him stop is a much bigger battle than saying no before he starts. I also limit his time during weekends on an ad-hoc basis: I make him take breaks or quit and do something else if I feel like he's already watched enough. I also use cancellation of weekend screen time as one of my primary punishments, so there are sometimes entire weekends with no screen time at all. Plus, any other activity we plan takes precedence, and there's no make-up time if we plan an all-day outing or something.

As for content, I pretty closely control what he watches. Mostly, I let him watch from a list of shows that I know and approve of. He sometimes comes up with new shows he wants to watch, and we'll try them out, but I reserve the right to ban ones that I don't like. (One that I've banned is Miniforce, because I find it annoying and derivative but also because it models behaviors that I don't want him emulating.) I try to push him toward the shows that I would like to watch myself, which works sometimes because he usually prefers me to sit and watch with him and I won't watch a show I don't like.

If I don't want him to watch something, I usually try to tell him exactly why. I mostly have a policy of telling him things explicitly and not leaving out things that kids aren't supposed to know about. (I confess, though, sometimes I'm just too lazy to explain something difficult, or I think he won't care enough about my explanation to justify my effort.)

I've spent a considerable amount of time researching entertainment for my son. While I've probably spent the majority of that time searching for library books (which we borrow in massive numbers), I also hunt for good TV shows and movies for him. He's a fan of nature shows, and we've gone through many of the best BBC features (largely gotten from the library); those are a goldmine of good, clean, educational entertainment if you can get your kid interested!

As for YouTube in particular, we don't let him watch it much. He has a low-end tablet that he can use to access it, but I keep that hidden on a high shelf most of the time and he has to ask me to get it out so he can use it. (I have a locked cabinet that I can use when he's old enough to search for it!) Lately when he does watch it he mostly wants to watch standard kids' TV series anyway, so it hasn't been much of a worry for me; he's usually too busy binge-watching some series to wander off down the YouTube rabbit hole. Mostly, though, I try to keep him off YouTube and steer him toward Netflix, or toward the games that I've installed for him (ad-free ones, mostly educational).

Monitoring my son is made pretty easy by the fact that he doesn't have much private space in the house (I go into his room a lot), and also because he hates being alone so he'd rather sit next to us while he watches than sit alone.

Finally, I try to follow the same guidelines that I've laid out for him: I avoid screen time during the week, unless I have to work in the evening (which is rare). A lot of his free time is spent doing things with me. I try not to make him follow rules that I won't follow myself.

I'm not a mother, but I think an important part of it is recognizing that they are going to be on the internet early whether we like it or not as that's just a part of our culture now, so while we should try to limit/monitor screentime in varying degrees, children should also be taught internet safety in a candid manner - not just stranger danger, but including being taught about the scams, Photoshop, bots, stuff like that, as Instagram and stuff could have a hugely damaging impact on their self esteem

I have a 3 and 7 year old. Our solution is limiting it with technological tools. All technology in our house the kids can access has some kind of restriction on it. Our phones take fingerprints. Our wifi mesh network has a ton of controls that we can access from our phones. We can control down to the device, set up schedules, time limits, grant or remove access, etc. Their tech only works between 9am and 8pm. Most of these schedule limits include TV, tablets, phones, video game consoles, pcs, assistant devices, etc. Weekdays they each get 1hr and 15min on their tablets. Weekends they get 3hrs per day. If they want more than that, it has to be watched together as a family.

Individual devices have time limits built in and schedules, too, as well as pin codes. All media has rating and parental locks, even over the air broadcasting. They only have access to YouTube Kids, not regular YouTube, and I sometimes ban certain creators or channels. The phone my daughter has for games has its own child mode that only gives her access to certain apps, and it also has time limits and scheduling, and it has no sim card.

We also have a house rules. Tablets and phones are not allowed to be watched alone behind closed doors. We have to be able to see, hear, (or both) what they are watching. Most of the parent apps also have options to review what they've watched and how long they've spent on certain activities, and I do review these at times. No cell phones at meal time (this includes us as parents) at home or at restaurants. No phones during quality time together (like a board game) and no phones during the bedtime routine/story (mostly a rule for us as parents). We also sometimes remove screen time or access as a consequence of bad behavior. Screen time is a privilege, not a right... in our house, at least.

We also have a lot of conversations about use and misuse of tech, how it can help or harm, and about the importance of real world interaction.

I think the biggest thing is modeling what we expect. It's easy ourselves to get sucked into our phones, so I try to be cognizant of that and make sure I am practicing what I preach as much as I can.

I’m finding this is an ongoing battle that we just have to keep readdressing and reworking as needed. Since we are the first generation dealing with this, there are no hard and fast rules (unfortunately) and everyone seems to handle it differently. Overall, as is the case for all parenting, it depends on each kid.

I have four kids - 7, 9, 11, and 13. I also work in tech and reading the worst news in the country is part of my day job. I don’t hold back in warning them about the dangers and I tell them that it is my job to keep them safe, not always to keep them happy. I recently took YouTube away from all of them except the 13 year old, who has more than proven she can handle it. I will not allow any of them on any social media.

I can’t do anything about their access through other kids - playing at a friend’s, on the bus, etc, but I can give them the facts and limit their exposure until they are older and have a better understanding of why I felt it necessary to limit them in the first place.

Kicking them outside to play with friends and having no electronics allowed on the weekdays has helped a lot, but the war is far from over. If I had it to do over again, I’d have never allowed anything online to begin with. Online games are a bigger issue here than YouTube ever was.

Raised kids in the 90s at the dawn of the internet age. Spent hours, during and later, wondering if I should have done more limiting of their time gaming and on the Internet.

At the time the Internet was just an infinite toy for the family. I wavered between limiting their time myself and "waiting for them to tire of it and learn to discipline themselves."

Not so much worried about the content as much as wondering if gaming and browsing the Internet constantly would change the way a kids brain functions in general.

Without going into my whole life story, the best advice I found was an article that said IF your child has a PROPENSITY for addiction of any kind, the internet can also be a thing they become obsessed with.

The growing awareness in society that game makers work to make the games addictive is a good thing for society.

So at this time I conclude that limiting computer and phone time are an important parent responsibility. It is too much to expect the kids to limit themselves.

If addictions run in your family . . . to smoking, collecting, drinking, whatever . . . this is probably especially important.

This question reminds me of being six, sleeping over at my friend's house, and being fascinated by the book on tape that I could vaguely hear her listening to through headphones while falling asleep.

The reason that passage stuck with me is because I found it again, in a book I was reading a decade later. It was from The Clan of the Cave Bear, which is deciiiiiiiidedly not a book for kids.

All of which is to say: this is not really that new a problem. It's essentially the same debate parents have been having for decades about whether or not it's okay to let kids with advanced reading levels read books that contain adult content.

And my answer to it is basically the same: it's more important to talk to them about what they're seeing than to not let them see it.

I don't mind screen time. It just needs to be educational content mixed with a variety of activities.

My son is 3. He has a projector hooked up to a fire stick in his room and he has a tablet. I created playlists for him on YouTube that he can watch through out the day. On his tablet we have a kindle fire that has their kids service free time on it. It only has education apps on it. Where he can practice to read, write, use critical thinking etc. We also have a leap frog subscription that I have been working with him on. He also has the app on his tablet where he can practice himself.

I try to incorporate screen time with other activities like arts and crafts, going to the park or the museum. So he's getting a well rounded experience and not just staring at a screen all day.

But we do have all tv days. Rarely but it happens. Especially now that I am 7 months pregnant and Don't have a lot of energy. I just try not to make it a every day thing.

Im a teenager as of now, so I grew up with all these sites discussed. I can say from experience that no matter what you do, your kid will find a way to see the things they want to see. Lay off your kids, they’ll do fine.

Edit: (at a certain age of course, I do not think a 4 year old should have unrestricted internet access)

Mostly I protect them by just not allowing them to have access to the internet in general. If my younger two want to watch baby shark or something, I'll turn it on for them. Other than that, they have kids Netflix and PBS.

My oldest is 9 and he gets to be on YouTube, but he's only allowed to watch music videos really (its kpop so theres nothing particularly racy). Hes also allowed to play games like fortnite for maybe an hour each day. However, he does not have a mic, and I make him mute it just on the off chance that someone would say anything bad to him.

Also, none of them have tablets. They do have a 3DS they play, but I never set it up for wifi, so they can only really play basic games like pokemon.

I'll figure out how to navigate the whole cellphone issue when they're older, but for now I feel like they dont really need the internet. They have toys and TV and the backyard.

My five year old and three year old have tablets. Everything is password protected and they’re not allowed to watch YouTube without us around. They only get the tablets for about two hours a day. They use the YouTube Kids app, which isn’t the best but is better than the regular version. We have Netflix on our home fire stick, which is also password protected and is only controlled by myself or my husband. My husband and I have talked about it and if things get too bad we have no problem deleting favorite apps from the tablets. The kids would have to know some insane password or steal our fingerprints to download anything.

Honestly? Everything they’re getting “exposed to” online is the same stuff they’ll see when they hang out with their peers at school every day. Taking their devices to “check” on them is just going to make them paranoid and never trust you. If you have no reason to not trust them in the first place, why should you need to “check up” on them to see if there’s “harmful content”? If you don’t trust them, why should they trust you? At least ask before you look at anything of theirs, otherwise, no matter how old they are, it’s 100% an invasion of privacy.

Aunt here, we downloaded the YouTube for kids app for 5 year old nephew to view rather than use the regular YouTube app. It's a lot easier to manage what he watches and it comes with screen time lock as well

Literally told anyone and everyone who cares for my child that YouTube in banned. Luckily there was no push back on this. He's nearly seven and knowing how dark the internet gets, my aim is to keep protecting him from it as long as I can.

I grew up on YouTube when it was first out there and other video sites and I saw a lot of evil things before kid only channels existed I saw a lot of YouTube poop videos. I had such high anxiety and my parents didn’t understand and my sister who didn’t care for the computer was so carefree and social.

So I won’t make that mistake with my son I will just wait til he is old enough and for now I have to find ways to entertain him in public or at home

Old enough that he understands that he can’t stay up late with the device old enough to understand what it means that bad guys online. Old enough to not throw a tantrum in public if I tell him to lower the volume or to put headphones on. If i can take the device away from him and he knows not to trust strangers online than he is old enough to have it

Keep very open lines of communication. We put various parental protections on my sons' iPads (ages 12 and 14). But, I know I cant prevent them from seeing some stuff on the internet. And I dont want them to be alone is processing something disturbing they saw. So, my husband and I told them that they can tell us if they ever need to talk about something they saw on the internet and we would never get mad at them even if they were looking at the site on purpose. My younger son came across a story about suicide that he found very upsetting. We talked a lot about it. My older son has an intellectual disability, and he came across a porn site. He showed my husband because he was confused by it. And my husband talked to him about what the site was, how it was make believe, and about consent, etc (he also blocked the site). (We've had several conversations about consent with both our sons, both about their right to not be touched, as well as how it is important to get consent before touching others) We have also been very clear that until they are adults, they are to never take or send naked pictures of themselves to someone or to receive naked pictures from someone else because they could get in big trouble. But again, we tell them if this happens, that they should tell us, rather than hide it, so we can help them. We dont want our kids to feel alone in dealing with these adult issues. When my younger son gets a bit older, maybe when he starts dating, I'm planning to have a conversation about how porn is make believe.

Keep very open lines of communication. We put various parental protections on my sons' iPads (ages 12 and 14). But, I know I cant prevent them from seeing some stuff on the internet. And I dont want them to be alone is processing something disturbing they saw. So, my husband and I told them that they can tell us if they ever need to talk about something they saw on the internet and we would never get mad at them even if they were looking at the site on purpose. My younger son came across a story about suicide that he found very upsetting. We talked a lot about it. My older son has an intellectual disability, and he came across a porn site. He showed my husband because he was confused by it. And my husband talked to him about what the site was, how it was make believe, and about consent, etc (he also blocked the site). (We've had several conversations about consent with both our sons, both about their right to not be touched, as well as how it is important to get consent before touching others) We have also been very clear that they are to never take or send naked pictures of themselves to someone or to receive naked pictures from someone else because they could get in big trouble. But again, we tell them if this happens, that they should tell us, rather than hide it, so we can help them. We dont want our kids to feel alone in dealing with these adult issues. When my younger son gets a bit older, maybe when he starts dating, I'm planning to have a conversation about how porn is make believe.

As silly as it sounds, it’s like food, right? You aren’t going to let your kiddo have cake and ice cream for breakfast or caffeinated soda before bedtime, I’m sure. And so, I’m not going to let my kiddo have the equivalent in screen time. Just turn it off. If your child asks why, use the the opportunity to teach. And keep in mind that your littles isn’t going to turn it off—you have to.

As a high schooler who has been trying to quit PMO for like two years now, I want parents to know that they shouldn't monitor their kids internet usage but please scare the shit out of them. Pedophiles and sex offenders are the kind of people who crave the high of naked people, and it can be rooted back from a porn addiction. Tell them if you catch them you're gonna beat the shit out of them or something idk. Tell them before it's too late, before they get caught up in the social norm of masturbating, like age 10 or 11. My dad has asked me multiple times if I do and of course I lied. Nobody has caught me and I doubt they will. I hate that I've habitualized (is that a word?) it into my day. I'm not here to look for help, I'm just here to tell you to not helicopter your kids, but to know there will be serious consequences. I'm scared I'll develop into a pedo or creep so I'm trying to end this battle before it's too late.

Edit: make sure that the consequences are strict, and not harsh. basically enforce Marshall law on their devices, so they realize how they took their freedom for granted. and be smart about it too, dont allow vpns or any other apps that bypass firewalls and the like. you want a well raised adult, not a cyber-security pen tester with a porn addiction

I'm not yet a parent but I'm dying to be, and this is absolutely my number one concern.

I am so happy to read this thread and see so many people taking an active approach to this issue and getting involved in their children's lives. When I'm out and about in the world, it just seems like all I see is parents totally failing to parent. Nothing but adults with their eyes glued to their phones, and children's attention completely captivated by screens and tablets. Seeing families at restaurants where everyone's happily teching away makes me want to scream. No one is present. It's sad. It's wrong.

I'm a city girl through and through, but sometimes I wonder what it'd be like to uproot and move to the country where internet / cellphone service is spotty and I can raise my children the way I feel they should be raised.